Prenatal Famine Exposure and Mortality in a National Birth Cohort: Follow-up through Age 63 Years

L.H. Lumey, Columbia University
Peter Ekamper, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)
Aryeh D. Stein, Emory University
Frans W. A. van Poppel, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)

The circumstances of the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-45 have been used in the past to examine the relation between nutrition in pregnancy, birth outcomes and morbidity later in life. We examine if famine exposure during specific periods of or around gestation is associated with adult survival to age 63 years. We sampled for follow-up men from the national birth cohorts 1944-1947, who were examined at age 18 years for military service (n=45,000). We examined mortality in relation to famine exposure in late gestation and in adjacent exposure periods. We modeled mortality from all causes between ages 19 and 63 years, comparing subjects in selected exposure categories with unexposed controls, using Cox proportional hazard models. Additional analyses included adjustments for relevant covariate information from the medical examination data file. A small increase in mortality was seen after famine exposure in early gestation but not after exposure in late gestation.