Birth weight is forever

Abstract

Birth weight is associated not just with infant morbidity and mortality, but with outcomes occurring much later in life, including adult mortality, as reported by a paper by Baker and colleagues in this issue of Epidemiology. While these associations are tantalizing per se, the truly interesting question concerns the mechanisms that underlie these links. The prevailing hypothesis suggests a "fetal origin" of diseases resulting from alterations in fetal nutrition that permanently program organ function. The most commonly proposed alternative is that factors, mainly genetic, that affect both fetal growth and disease risk are responsible for the observed associations. Although both mechanisms are intellectually attractive-and may well coexist-we should be cautious to not focus excessively on fetal growth. Doing this may lead us in the wrong direction, as has likely happened in the case of birth weight in relation to infant survival.