Does inadequate prenatal care contribute to growth retardation among second-born African-American babies?

The authors evaluated the relation between adequacy of prenatal care and risk of delivery of full term small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants. Data were derived from maternally linked birth certificates for 6,325 African-American women whose first two pregnancies ended in singleton, full term live births in Georgia from 1989 through 1992. The authors used stratified analysis to assess the effect of prenatal care on the risk of having an SGA baby in the second pregnancy among women with and without an SGA baby in their first pregnancy. The group of women with a history of SGA birth may be more likely to include persons for whom SGA delivery is related to factors, such as genetics, that are not amenable to intervention by prenatal care. Inadequate prenatal care was not associated with the risk of SGA delivery among women who had previously delivered an SGA baby. In unadjusted analyses, inadequate prenatal care was associated with an increased risk of delivering a full term SGA baby in the second pregnancy among women whose first baby was not SGA (risk ratio = 1.28; 95% confidence interval: 1.05, 1.55). The association did not persist when data were adjusted for confounding variables (odds ratio = 1.11; 95% confidence interval: 0.89, 1.38). Regardless of outcome in the first pregnancy, adequate prenatal care did not reduce the risk of full term SGA birth among second pregnancies in this population.