Shorter mothers have shorter pregnancies

Abstract

We assessed whether maternal height was associated with gestational age in a cohort of 294 children born at term. Increasing maternal height was associated with longer pregnancy duration (p = 0.002). Stratified analyses showed that the main effect on pregnancy length appears to occur among shorter mothers (<165 cm tall), whose pregnancies were ∼0.6 and ∼0.7 weeks shorter than pregnancies of mothers 165-170 cm (p = 0.0009) and >170 cm (p = 0.0002) tall, respectively. Further, children of shorter mothers were more likely to be born early term than those of average height (p = 0.021) and taller (p = 0.0003) mothers. Maternal stature is likely to be a contributing factor influencing long-term outcomes in the offspring via its effect on pregnancy length.