BackgroundResearch exploring the relationship between prenatal infection and child behavioural outcomes would benefit from further studies utilising full‐population samples with the scale to investigate specific infections and to employ robust designs. We tested the association among several common infections requiring inpatient admission during and after pregnancy with a range of childhood behavioural outcomes, to determine whether any negative impact was specific to the period of foetal development.MethodsThe sample included all mother–offspring pairs from the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) for whom the child commenced their first year of full‐time schooling in 2009 (~age 5 years; n = 77,302 offspring), with records linked across four health administrative data sets including the NSW perinatal data collection (PDC), the NSW admitted patient data collection (APDC) and the NSW component of the 2009 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC). Multivariable linear regression was used to test associations between a number of infections requiring inpatient admission during and after pregnancy with a range of teacher assessed behavioural outcomes.ResultsAssociations specific to the prenatal period were only found for streptococcus A although this would need to be reproduced in external samples given the low prevalence. Otherwise, 12 out of 15 selected infections either showed no association prenatally or also demonstrated associations in the 12 months after pregnancy. For example, prenatal hepatitis C, influenza and urinary E. coli infections were associated with lower scores of several domains of childhood behaviour, but even stronger associations were found when these same maternal infections occurred after pregnancy.ConclusionsThe prenatal infections we tested appeared not to impact childhood behaviour by altering foetal neurodevelopment. Rather, the strong associations we found among infections occurring during and after pregnancy point to either residual socioeconomic/lifestyle factors or a shared familial/genetic liability between infections and behavioural problems.

中文翻译：

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探索需要住院治疗的病原体特异性产前感染与后代 5 岁时行为领域之间的关系

背景探索产前感染与儿童行为结果之间关系的研究将受益于利用全人群样本进行的进一步研究，该研究具有调查特定感染的规模并采用稳健的设计。我们测试了几种需要在怀孕期间和怀孕后住院的常见感染与一系列儿童行为结果之间的关联，以确定是否有特定于胎儿发育时期的负面影响。方法样本包括来自澳大利亚州的所有母子对新南威尔士州 (NSW) 的孩子于 2009 年开始第一年的全日制学校教育（约 5 岁；n= 77,302 名后代），记录涉及四个卫生管理数据集，包括新南威尔士州围产期数据收集 (PDC)、新南威尔士州入院患者数据收集 (APDC) 和 2009 年澳大利亚早期发育普查 (AEDC) 的新南威尔士州部分。使用多变量线性回归来测试怀孕期间和怀孕后需要住院的许多感染与一系列教师评估的行为结果之间的关联。结果仅发现了链球菌 A 与产前时期的特定关联，尽管这需要在外部重现鉴于患病率较低，样本。另外，15 种选定的感染中有 12 种要么在产前没有表现出关联，要么在怀孕后 12 个月内也表现出关联。例如，产前丙型肝炎、流感和尿毒症大肠杆菌感染与儿童期行为的多个领域的较低分数相关，但当这些相同的母体感染在怀孕后发生时，发现更强烈的关联。结论我们测试的产前感染似乎不会通过改变胎儿神经发育来影响儿童期行为。相反，我们发现怀孕期间和怀孕后发生的感染之间存在很强的关联，这表明要么是残留的社会经济/生活方式因素，要么是感染与行为问题之间存在共同的家族/遗传责任。