CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 265Birth, Development, and HealthInfant Development and Preterm CareChronic Kidney Disease and Diabetes

Preterm birth and risk of chronic kidney disease from childhood into mid-adulthood: National cohort study

Open access
Crump, Casey, Sundquist, Jan, Winkleby, Marilyn A, Sundquist, Kristina·2019·BMJ
DOI 10.1136/bmj.l1346PMC PMC6490674
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the relation between preterm birth (gestational age <37 weeks) and risk of CKD from childhood into mid-adulthood. Design: National cohort study. Setting: Sweden. Participants: 4 186 615 singleton live births in Sweden during 1973-2014. Exposures: Gestational age at birth, identified from nationwide birth records in the Swedish birth registry. Main outcome measures: CKD, identified from nationwide inpatient and outpatient diagnoses through 2015 (maximum age 43 years). Cox regression was used to examine gestational age at birth and risk of CKD while adjusting for potential confounders, and co-sibling analyses assessed the influence of unmeasured shared familial (genetic or environmental) factors. Results: 4305 (0.1%) participants had a diagnosis of CKD during 87.0 million person years of follow-up. Preterm birth and extremely preterm birth (<28 weeks) were associated with nearly twofold and threefold risks of CKD, respectively, from birth into mid-adulthood (adjusted hazard ratio 1.94, 95% confidence interval 1.74 to 2.16; P<0.001; 3.01, 1.67 to 5.45; P<0.001). An increased risk was observed even among those born at early term (37-38 weeks) (1.30, 1.20 to 1.40; P<0.001). The association between preterm birth and CKD was strongest at ages 0-9 years (5.09, 4.11 to 6.31; P<0.001), then weakened but remained increased at ages 10-19 years (1.97, 1.57 to 2.49; P<0.001) and 20-43 years (1.34, 1.15 to 1.57; P<0.001). These associations affected both males and females and did not seem to be related to shared genetic or environmental factors in families. Conclusions: Preterm and early term birth are strong risk factors for the development of CKD from childhood into mid-adulthood. People born prematurely need long term follow-up for monitoring and preventive actions to preserve renal function across the life course.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1136/bmj.l1346

Cites

59 of 59 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Reduced nephron endowment and altered renal development link preterm birth to later hypertension and cardiometabolic risk.

    “In another national cohort, preterm birth was associated with an increased risk of chronic kidney disease from childhood through mid-adulthood, supporting the link between reduced nephron endowment, altered renal development and later hypertension and cardiometabolic risk [111].”

    From Placental Pathophysiology and Developmental Programming of Adult Cardiometabolic Risk: A Narrative Review of Pregnancy Exposures (2026) · cites this paper as [111]

    The Introduction and Discussion say preterm birth interrupts kidney development, reduces nephron endowment, and may contribute to later hypertension. The Discussion also reports increased CKD risk from childhood into mid-adulthood in the national cohort. The proposed mechanism is not established by this cohort, and the paper does not substantiate the claim about later cardiometabolic risk. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Preterm birth is associated with an increased risk of chronic kidney disease from childhood through mid-adulthood.

    “In another national cohort, preterm birth was associated with an increased risk of chronic kidney disease from childhood through mid-adulthood, supporting the link between reduced nephron endowment, altered renal development and later hypertension and cardiometabolic risk [111].”

    From Placental Pathophysiology and Developmental Programming of Adult Cardiometabolic Risk: A Narrative Review of Pregnancy Exposures (2026) · cites this paper as [111]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Crump, C., Sundquist, J., Winkleby, M. A., & Sundquist, K.
Affiliations
  • Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (US)
  • Lund University (SE)
  • Stanford University (US)
Corresponding author
Crump, Casey
ORCID
Venue
BMJ
Publisher
BMJ
Published
2019-05-01
Volume
365
Pages
l1346
ISSN
  • 1756-1833 (ISSN-L)
  • 0959-8138
DOI
10.1136/bmj.l1346
PMC
PMC6490674
OpenAlex
W2942751913
Cited by
265
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 29 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 16
FWCI
33.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMJ (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Lund University Publications (Lund University) (submittedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Hjärt-Lungfonden
  • Vetenskapsrådet
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL139536)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Birth, Development, and Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Infant Development and Preterm Care
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Nephrology › Chronic Kidney Disease and Diabetes
Keywords
preterm birth, chronic kidney disease, extremely preterm birth, early term birth, gestational age, childhood, midlife, risk factors, birth cohort, kidney disease prevention, long-term follow-up, Sweden, birth registry, sex differences, neonatal intensive care, neonatal sepsis
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Child, Child, Preschool, Female, Gestational Age, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Pregnancy, Risk Factors, Sweden, Early Diagnosis, Premature Birth, Renal Insufficiency, Chronic, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review