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Birth Season and Infection Risk Among Children Under 5 Years Old: A Study of Hospital Admissions and Short Message
Karina Christensen1, Nikolas Christensen1,2, Steffen Husby1,2
1From the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C, Denmark.
Insights
Children born in fall or winter experienced fewer infection symptoms at home. However, fall births were linked to increased hospital admissions for infections after the first year of life.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric immunology
- Infectious disease epidemiology
- Seasonal birth effects
Background:
- Birth season may influence immune system development and infection risk.
- Investigating the link between birth season and childhood infections is crucial for public health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the association between birth season and the risk of hospital admission for infections.
- To assess the relationship between birth season and reported symptoms of infection in children.
Main Methods:
- Prospective cohort study of 2434 children with a 3.5-year follow-up.
- Hospital admission data sourced from the Danish National Patient Registry.
- Short message service (SMS) questionnaires used to collect infection symptom data from 1279 families over one year.
Main Results:
- No overall association between birth season and hospital admissions for all infections.
- Fall-born children showed higher infection-related hospital admissions after age one.
- Winter- and fall-born children reported fewer days with infection symptoms compared to summer-born children.
Conclusions:
- Birth season did not significantly impact hospital admissions for all infections within the first five years.
- Fall birth was associated with increased hospital admissions for infections after the first year.
- Winter and fall births correlated with a reduced incidence of infection symptoms reported at home.
Background:
The season in which a child is born may affect the immune system development and thereby influence the risk of infections. In this study, we examined the associations between birth season and the risk of hospital admission or symptoms associated with a wide range of infections.
Methods:
This study is a prospective cohort study of 2434 children with an average follow-up of 3.5 years. Admission data were obtained from the Danish National Patient Registry. Via short message service (SMS) questionnaires, 1279 families reported symptoms of infections in a 1-year period.
Results:
Of the 2434 children, 639 (26.3%) were admitted to the hospital, and the children experienced on average 64.4 days with symptoms of infection within 1 year. There was no association between birth season and hospital admissions due to all infectious causes [incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 0.89; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.65-1.22; P = 0.471]. However, children born in the fall had a higher IRR for admission due to all infectious causes when excluding admissions within the first year of life. Winter- and spring-born children had lower IRRs for admission due to gastrointestinal infections than summer-born children, but this association was alone present when admissions within the first year of life were included. The short message service-survey showed significantly lower IRRs for any symptom of infection among winter-born (IRR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.75-0.96; P = 0.009) and fall-born children (IRR = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.78-0.99; P = 0.033) in comparison with summer-born children.
Conclusions:
Birth season was not associated with hospital admission due to all infectious causes within the first 5 years of age; however, fall-birth was associated with a higher IRR for admissions due to all infectious causes after the first year of life. The association between birth season and admissions due to gastrointestinal infections was only seen when including children admitted under the age of one. Being born in fall or winter was associated with a decreased IRR for number of days with any symptom of infection registered at home.
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