Pregnancy among the Hmong: birthweight, age, and parity.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES. The influx of Southeast Asians into the United States allows for the study of this special population and contributes to a broader understanding of reproductive health. METHODS. We used information on birth certificates to identify 1937 Hmong children born 1985 through 1988 in California, and we compared birthweight and reproductive factors as related to these children with the same factors as related to 3776 White, non-Hispanic children born in the same period. RESULTS. Mean birthweight among Hmong children (3311 g) was significantly lower (P less than .05) than among White children (3452 g), but the proportion of births under 1500 g was higher for Whites. Hmong women were of much higher parity and were more likely to deliver at both a young (less than 18 years) and an old (greater than 40 years) maternal age. At every age and every parity, however, Hmong women had cesarean sections at one-half to one-tenth the rate of White women. CONCLUSIONS. Despite a high proportion of births at high parity and advanced maternal age, Hmong women gave birth to very low-birthweight babies at essentially the same rates as White women. Their lower cesarean section rates, however, deserve further attention.

International migration and caesarean birth: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Despite significant heterogeneity, migrant women from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos had lower risks of caesarean compared to non-migrant women in all nine included studies [15,16,37,46,48,49,51,60,61]. Focusing on Vietnamese women, two older studies found Vietnamese to have caesarean rates lower than Australian-born [OR= 0.87 (95% CI=0.75, 1.00] [49,60].…”

Intra- and inter-individual variability of urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations in Hmong women of reproductive age

“…Eligibility was restricted to married couples in which the woman was between the ages of 18 and 46 at FRIENDS enrollment and the husband was at least 18 years of age. Because Hmong women have been reported to continue childbearing at later ages (Helsel, et al, 1992), the baseline enrollment criterion for women was extended beyond the traditional upper limit of age 40 commonly used in studies of reproductive outcomes. Through November 2005, a total of 175 enrolled couples completed baseline questionnaires which collected information on demographic and lifestyle factors, fish consumption patterns, exposure histories, and reproductive history at enrollment.…”

Birth Weight and Income: Interactions across Generations

“…Some are socio-economic while others are behavioral and personal in nature. Among the socio-economic and demographic factors affecting birth weight are maternal age (such that women under 20 and over 35 are at a higher risk of delivering a low birth weight infant), labor force status (working mothers tend to experience greater risks [Peoples-Sheps, Siegel, and Suchindran 1991], particularly in occupations that expose women to second-hand smoke [Bakketeig et al 1993]), education level (higher education leads to lower rates of low birth weight [Duncan and Laren 1990]), parity (first borns are more often of low birth weight [Helsel, Petitti, and Kunstadter 1992]), birth spacing (pregnancies spaced close together are more likely to result in low birth weight [Klebanoff 1988]), maternal stature, weight before pregnancy, and weight gain during pregnancy. Behavioral factors such as alcohol or drug use by the mother have long been known to increase the risk of low birth weight (Cornelius et al 1995).…”