Abstract

PIP: There has been no reported systematic attempt to quantify the relative unique contribution of multiple social and biologic maternal characteristics to birthweight and gestational time among mothers of differing childhood socioeconomic backgrounds. This issue was examined in 3 nativity cohorts from a population of 766 black prenatal clinic patients in New York City using a series of stepwise hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Different variable sets contributed to birthweight variance in each group, although total variance explained was similar for the 3. Since the foreign-born cohort represented a different higher childhood socioeconomic background, but was similar to the other groups in current socioeconomic status, the differing observed associations of variable sets to birthweight may be related to childhood socioeconomic status. In all groups, social factors show more effect on gestation among those births more than 2500 grams than for smaller babies and thus account for more total explained birthweight variance for births over 2500 grams. Future research is necessary to replicate these results in the general population since this is the 1st study using multivariate techniques to look at social and biological factors associated with birthweight in groups with different childhood social backgrounds.