A longitudinal study of tooth emergence and somatic growth in 697 children from birth to three years

The study was on three groups of children who had been small (SGA), average (AGA) or large (LGA) for gestational age at birth. A generalized linear model was used to estimate the effects of associated factors on the number of teeth emerged at one, two and three years. When the groups were combined, birth weight, birth order, maternal smoking during pregnancy and the children's height and head circumference at a given age all emerged as significant explanatory variables. The effect of maternal smoking was the reverse of that expected and evident only in the AGA and LGA groups. The associations with postnatal size were strongest in the SGA group and mainly low or negative in the LGA group. The birth-order effect was similar in all three groups.