Tag : Births

Washington: According to a study by Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, children who are born before 39 weeks are more likely to experience symptoms associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD, which affects more than 10 per cent of U.S. school-age children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, manifests early in childhood with symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity or inattention, and has known links to preterm birth (less than 37 weeks gestation). The study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, is one of only a few to investigate the associations between gestational age at term (37-41 weeks) and a diagnosis or symptoms of ADHD. It is the first to include reports from teachers. "Teachers' reports, in conjunction with maternal reports and physician evaluations, provide valuable input for the diagnosis of ADHD," said Nancy Reichman, author of the study and a professor of paediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She added, "Mother-reported symptoms generally reflect behaviours in the home or in small family or social groups, while teacher-reported symptoms reflect behaviours in a structured educational setting by professionals who work with a large number of children and observe the range of behaviours that students exhibit in classrooms." Reichman and her team, which included Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School neonatology fellow Geethanjali Linguasubramanian, sought to estimate the associations between gestational age at term and 9-year-old children's symptoms of ADHD reported by their teachers. They analyzed data on about 1,400 children in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, a U.S. birth cohort study that randomly sampled births in ...