Effect of fathers' age and birth order on occurrence of congenital heart disease

Abstract

Study objective-The aim was to examine if there is an effect of fathers'age and of birth order on the occurrence of congenital heart disease. Design-This was a hospital based case-referent study including use of birth defects surveillance data. Subjects-Subjects were 497 cases of congenital heart disease aged between 3 months and 5 years, born in Beijing and Hebei Province, China; 6222 children without congenital heart disease serve as reference baseline. Measurements and main results-With stratified analysis and logistic regression analyses, congenital heart disease was found to be associated with fathers'age <25 years (odds ratio 2.63), independent of mothers'age and of birth order. There was also evidence to show a higher birth order effect on the occurrence of congenital heart disease independent of parental ages. Conclusion-Higher birth order and fathers aged <25 years were both independently associated with some categories of congenital heart disease and with congenital heart disease overall.