Abstract
Summary. In this study, based on total Western Australian singleton Caucasian births, women who had repeatedly given birth to small-for-gestational-age (SGA) term infants (‘repeater’ mothers) were compared with multiparous women who had had only one such infant (‘non-repeater’ mothers). Women with any preterm births were excluded. The study population comprised 678 repeater and 986 non-repeater mothers. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that weight loss or static weight in the third trimester of pregnancy, paternal smoking, low maternal birthweight, short maternal height and unknown family disease history were independent risk factors for repeater status compared with non-repeaters. The risk associated with paternal smoking was confined to mothers who were non-smokers themselves. There may have been a direct association between paternal smoking and recurrent fetal growth retardation or paternal smoking may have acted as a ‘marker’ for certain behavioural, environmental, social and economic factors which were not measured. Neonatal outcome was worse for the SGA infants of non-repeater mothers than for those of repeater mothers, although the latter were significantly more likely to weigh less than 2500 grams.