IJE Advance Access originally published online on February 14, 2008
International Journal of Epidemiology 2008 37(2):250-252; doi:10.1093/ije/dyn009
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2008; all rights reserved.
Commentary: On Transmission through the female line of a mechanism constraining human fetal growth—does it exist?
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, PO Box 281, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: Sven.Cnattingius@ki.se
Accepted 20 December 2007
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
In 1986, just before the start of the era of studies focusing on fetal programming of adult disease, Margaret Ounsted and colleagues1 published a timely observational study, focusing on birth weight and fetal growth across generations.
Previously, results from animal studies, including the classical cross-breeding studies between large Shire horses and Shetland ponies, had strongly suggested that the maternal effect on fetal growth overrides the paternal effect. Moreover, in another animal study, the maternal effect on fetal growth restriction was larger than the maternal effect on fetal growth enhancement.
Ounsted and colleagues used information on birth weight