A large body of work has investigated the association between birth weight and ADHD and has resulted in mixed findings with regard to the direction and magnitude of this association. Despite the vast amount of research on this topic, a comprehensive and systematic quantification of the association between birth weight and ADHD has yet to be undertaken. A meta-analysis of 88 unique studies (N = 4,645,482) was conducted to quantify the overall effect size of birth weight on ADHD symptoms. Several variables were examined as moderators that may contribute to systematic variation in effect sizes. Overall, birth weight was found to have a small, but significant, association with ADHD symptoms such that individuals born at lower birth weights manifested greater symptoms of ADHD (r = -0.15). Sample type, mean birth weight of the sample, geographic region, the informant of ADHD symptoms, ADHD symptom measurement method, and race were all found to contribute significantly to heterogeneity in effect sizes. Notably, several early life risk factors previously found to be associated with both ADHD and birth weight, gestational age and prenatal smoking exposure, were not found to contribute to heterogeneity in effect sizes. The findings of the current analyses align with the growing recognition that early life adversity contributes to neurodevelopmental difficulties, and the findings highlight the importance of a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the association between early life risk factors and adverse neurodevelopmental sequela, such as that observed in ADHD.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 May 2023.
All research outputs
#10,083,765
of 34,020,007 outputs
Outputs from Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology
#1,023
of 2,516 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#143,605
of 492,605 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology
#12
of 34 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,020,007 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,516 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 492,605 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 34 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its contemporaries.
