File:Special educational need by gestational age.jpg

Prevalence of special educational need by gestation at delivery

"The relationship between SEN and gestation at delivery was reverse J-shaped (Figure 1). The reverse J-shaped relationship was tested using a multivariable restricted cubic spline, which confirmed that the effect of gestational age was robust to the inclusion of the covariates. There was a very strong association with extreme preterm delivery (24–27 wk: adjusted OR 6.92, 95% CI 5.58–8.58, p<0.001) (Table 2). The risk steadily declined with increasing gestational age up to 40–41 wk, but then increased among those who delivered post-dates (42 wk; adjusted OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.08–1.25, p<0.001). Compared with infants born at 40 wk, those delivered early term (37–39 wk) were at increased risk of SEN (adjusted OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.12–1.20, p<0.001)."

Original file name: Figure 1. Journal.pmed.1000289.g001.png

<pubmed>20543995</pubmed>| PLoS Medicine

Citation: MacKay DF, Smith GCS, Dobbie R, Pell JP (2010) Gestational Age at Delivery and Special Educational Need: Retrospective Cohort Study of 407,503 Schoolchildren. PLoS Med 7(6): e1000289. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000289

Academic Editor: Tze Kin Lau, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Received: February 15, 2010; Accepted: April 29, 2010; Published: June 8, 2010

Copyright: © 2010 MacKay et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.