Can children's health be predicted by perinatal health?

Background The purpose of this paper was to investigate how well children's health until age 7 years can be predicted by perinatal outcome using routi ne health registers. Methods Follow-up of one year cohort (N = 60 192) was performed by record l inkages with personal identification number. The data came from the 1987 Fi nnish Medical Birth Register, from six other national registers and from ed ucation registers of one county. Results All perinatal health indicators showed a strong correlation with su bsequent health, and prediction of good health was satisfactory: 85% of chi ldren who were healthy in the perinatal period did not have any reported he alth problems in early childhood, and 91% of children healthy in early chil dhood had been healthy in the perinatal period. However, it was not possibl e to predict poor health outcome: 76% of the children with reported perinat al problems were healthy in early childhood, and 87% of the children with l ong-term morbidity in childhood did not have any perinatal problems. Conclusions Our findings suggest that in assessing risk factors and health care technology, monitoring perinatal health is not enough and long-term fo llow-ups are needed.