Children of The Welsh Study of Mothers and Babies
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Welsh Study of Mothers and Babies: Follow-up of a Population-Based Cohort of Children aged 4-7 years
IRAS ID
192686
Contact name
Helen Falconer
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 30 days
Research summary
Research Summary
BACKGROUND: All women in the UK are offered ultrasound screening for fetal anomalies in the second trimester of pregnancy. In addition to major anomalies, changes known as “normal variants” or “markers are also identified at this scan. Little is known about the clinical implications of markers, and their management varies markedly between hospitals. The aim of this project is to examine the feasibility of obtaining follow-up data on participants from a cohort study conducted in Wales between 2008 and 2011. This cohort study recruited a sample of pregnant women attending routine antenatal care, to examine the prevalence of markers at the second trimester ultrasound scan, their association with adverse pregnancy outcomes, and their association with longer-term health and developmental outcomes in childhood.
METHODS: 29,696 women with singleton pregnancies were recruited into the original cohort. 94% of these gave their consent to be contacted for further follow-up. Data on all seven markers were available from 18,841 scans, and 1,026 markers were confirmed. All mothers of children with markers (“exposed” population) will be contacted by post, and for each of these, three women will be selected at random from those who gave birth in the same year ("unexposed" population, approximately 4000 in total). The NHS Wales Informatic Service will use the NHS numbers of study participants to identify current addresses from general practitioner records.
OUTPUTS: The output of the work will be data on the response rates, including information on response by maternal characteristics (such as age and area of residence) and the utility of a reminder letter in increasing response rates. If we achieve a 60% response rate, we will also have an adequate sample size to describe the prevalence of adverse health and developmental outcomes in the cohort and their association with the commonest markers.Summary of Results
This was a follow-up of an established cohort (the Welsh Study of Mothers and Babies). We sent out questionnaires to mothers to ask about their children's health and development, and care seeking behaviours. There were 22,000 mothers in the original study, and we received 4052 responses (18% response rate). The mothers who responded tended to be older and to live in less deprived areas than the mothers in the original study and mothers in the general population in Wales. Overall, 96.6% of parents reported that their child's health was very good or good. These percentages were far lower for parents of autistic children (75.8%) or children with asthma (82.6%). Autistic children had had contact with a median of 4 healthcare professionals in their life to date (IQR 3,5) compared with 1 for asthmatic children (IQR 1,2). Autistic children were also receiving more support at school than asthmatic children (75.9% compared with 15.9%) or children with no long-term conditions (8.6%). Autistic and asthmatic children were more likely to require any kind of secondary care (seen in accident and emergency; as an inpatient; or as an outpatient) than children with no long-term conditions. It has not been possible to publish these data due to the low response rate and lack of representativeness of the parents and children to the general population of Wales.
REC name
Wales REC 3
REC reference
15/WA/0410
Date of REC Opinion
11 Dec 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion