Abstract
Objective To explore the association between maternal education levels and cognitive and language
composite scores of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Third Edition at 18 to 24 months' corrected age in extremely preterm infants born
at < 29 weeks of gestation.
Design/methods For infants born between 2005 and 2008, maternal education levels and the cognitive
and language composite scores were collected. Analysis of covariance was used to determine
the relationship between maternal education levels and composite scores after adjusting
for neonatal and perinatal factors.
Results For the study period, 457/524 (88%) infants were included in the analysis. With less
than a high school education as reference, infants born to mothers with a high school
education (adjusted mean difference [MD] = 5.4; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.9 to
10.0), with partial college or specialty training (MD 8.1; 95% CI 2.8 to 13.5), with
a university degree or more (MD 12.6; 95% CI 8.2 to 17.0) had significantly higher
cognitive scores. Similarly, infants born to mothers with a university degree or more
had significantly higher language scores (MD 10.8; 95% CI 6.1 to 15.5).
Conclusions For infants born at <29 weeks' gestation, both cognitive and language scores were
higher as maternal education increased from less than high school level to university
or higher level.
Keywords
neurodevelopmental outcomes - very preterm infant - maternal education - cognition
- language
