Maternal Smoking Behavior, Background and Neonatal Health in Finnish Children Subsequently Placed in Foster Care

• NCJ Number: 216321
• Journal: Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 30 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2006 Pages: 1037-1047
• Author(s): Mirjam Kalland; Jari Sinkkonen; Mika Gissler; Jouni Merilainen; Martti A. Siimes
• Date Published: September 2006
• Length: 11 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

A sample of Finnish children placed in foster care were compared with children in the country's general population based on mothers' background characteristics and health as newborns.

Abstract

The study found that children placed in foster care had poorer health at birth than population-based children, and these differences were only partly explained by the difference in mothers' smoking habits during pregnancy. The 1,668 children placed in foster care had a lower birth weight and birth length, lower gestational age, lower 1-minute Apgar scores, and later discharge from the hospital nursery than the population-based controls (n=59,727). The proportion of teen-age mothers was approximately four times higher and the proportion of unmarried women was twice as high for the children in foster care compared with population-based controls. Fifty-six percent of the mothers of foster children reported smoking during pregnancy, compared with only 15 percent of the mothers of the population-based controls. The mothers of the foster children used the free health controls at maternity clinics as much as the population-based mothers, which suggest possibilities for intervention with mother-child pairs that have risk factors for subsequent foster-care placement. Data on the mother-child pairs involved in foster care were obtained from the Finnish Medical Birth Registry for January 1, 1987, to December 31, 1989, and the Finnish Child Welfare Registry for January 1, 1987, to December 31, 1997. The controls were all Finnish children born in 1987. Infant neonatal health was estimated from the following indicators: birth weight and birth length, birth weight by gestational age, 1-minute Apgar scores, and age at discharge from the hospital nursery. Mothers' background data included age, marital status, number of postbirth visits at maternity clinics, and smoking during pregnancy. 4 tables and 30 references