Some risk factors, including age and obesity, increased. Some preventive behaviour became more frequent, including not smoking and breast-feeding. Induction of labour increased recently, but the increase in caesareans between the last two surveys was slight and not significant. Preterm birth has continued to increase since 1995 at a slow but constant rate, although the proportion of growth-restricted babies recently fell. Because the 2010 survey was organised over two weeks in
some large hospitals, the number of live births in our sample cannot be directly compared with that recorded in the vital statistics. Nonetheless, the number is very close to the mean number of weekly births in March [4]. The proportion check details of missing data for items collected from the medical records is extremely low [4]: birth weight was missing for 0.4% of births, and gestational age for 0.5%. This proportion is somewhat higher for the data collected by interviews with the mothers and reached 4%, for example, for educational level. The representativeness of the sample was tested in 2010, by comparing indicators with those from the vital statistics [4]. There were few differences for maternal age, women’s nationality, births outside
marriage or twin deliveries. Slight differences existed for parity and occupation, possibly due to variations in reporting or coding of these Selleckchem MEK inhibitor data between the vital statistics and the national perinatal surveys [4]. The last survey was delayed from October 2009 to March 2010, and the comparisons with the earlier surveys no longer cover the same season. This delay is very unlikely Methane monooxygenase to have affected either preterm births or birth weights, because a seasonal effect has not been generally observed; moreover, when it exists, it appears to be moderate and to exist especially between winter and summer [6] and [7].
Moreover, testing of the national perinatal survey methodology compared medical practices and children’s health status between spring and fall and found no differences [2]. Finally we observed that the recommendations given to women to limit the risk of infection during the A(H1N1) influenza pandemic, especially the limitation of medical visits and the preference for visits to doctors’ offices rather than to health centers or hospitals, did not have any notable effect on indicators for prenatal care [4]. Variations between years must be interpreted cautiously. Some differences might be due to chance; the questions or the way of answering them sometimes varied because of changes in practices and the context of the pregnancy. Notes in the tables point out the principal changes to questions and call for a degree of prudence.