Relationship between birth head circumference and adulthood quality of life in Chinese people

To determine the relationship between birth size and later QOL for Chinese people.

Birth data of 1074 subjects were obtained from obstetric birth records of Peking Union Medical College Hospital. All subjects are interviewed face to face with the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey scale by trained investigators. Linear regression model was used to analyse the relationship between QOL and birth head circumference of the subjects after adjusting for the childhood and adulthood characteristics. The relationship was described with regression coefficients (B) and its 95% confidence interval (CI).

The mean weighted score of QOL was 88.1 ± 9.1, ranging from 76.8 to 100. Larger birth head circumference meant higher adulthood QOL total score (P= 0.001). After controlling the adulthood confounders, as compared to larger head circumference (≥33 cm), small (<31 cm) and medium head circumferences (31-33 cm) meant lower adulthood QOL scores (B=-2.356, P= 0.005 and B=-1.645, P= 0.014, respectively). The increase of head circumference by 1 cm was associated with 0.480 (95% CI: 0.141, 0.820) increase of QOL score after adjusting adulthood confounders (P= 0.006).

This study validated the relationship between birth head circumference and QOL in later life. Smaller head circumference at birth could predict worse adulthood QOL at above 50 years old.