Prenatal Exposure to Fever and Infections and Academic Performance: A Multilevel Analysis

Area of Science:

• Neurodevelopmental disorders
• Epidemiology
• Public Health

Background:

• Prenatal exposure to maternal fever and infections is a known risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders.
• Subtle effects of these exposures on neurodevelopment, such as academic performance, remain less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between prenatal exposure to maternal fever and common infections with academic performance in childhood and early adolescence.
• To determine if early-life infections influence a child's educational outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the Danish National Birth Cohort (1996-2002) including 71,850 children and 67,528 mothers.
• Prospectively collected information on maternal fever and infections via pregnancy interviews.
• Linked exposure data with academic performance from the Danish National Tests (2010-2013).
• Employed hierarchical multilevel linear regression and sibling comparisons for robust analysis.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in academic performance were observed based on prenatal exposure to fever, any infection, genitourinary infection, prolonged cough, or diarrhea.
• Results remained consistent across various academic assessments, exposure timings, and sibling analyses.
• The study analyzed 216,350 academic assessments.

Conclusions:

• Prenatal exposure to common maternal infections and fever does not appear to negatively affect a child's basic school performance.
• This large-scale population-based study provides evidence against a link between maternal infections during pregnancy and children's academic achievement.