Parents' birth weight linked to premature delivery

The birth weight of parents can put their babies at an increased risk of premature birth. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the risk of premature delivery. One such factor is believed to be the birth weight of parents. It is said that high birth weight of the father has been associated with a higher risk of fathering a preterm infant, causing speculation that a fetus programmed to grow rapidly can trigger preterm labour. The infants of fathers with a high birth weight are believed to be more likely to be premature, but only if their mothers were born at a relatively low weight. To examine how parental birth weight influences the risk of premature delivery of their offsprings, researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development studied pregnancies occurring from 1974-1989 among women themselves born in the Danish Perinatal Study (1959-1961) who were identified through the Population Register. Father's birth weight was obtained by linking the records of fathers to archived midwifery records. The results showed that a higher preterm birth risk was seen when the father's birth weight topped 8 pounds, 13 ounces and mothers' was below 6 pounds, 10 ounces. Among these infants, 16 percent were premature. That was roughly twice the rate of infants whose parents both had more moderate birth weights. Overall, it was found that paternal birth weight was not related to the odds of preterm birth, though the reasons for this still remain unclear. When the mother was born small, increasing father's birth weight was associated with increased risk of preterm birth, suggesting that a fetus growing faster than its mother can accommodate, might trigger preterm birth.