Birth weight and later nutritional status, cognitive development and job status: A critical revision Peso de nacimiento y posterior estado nutricional, desarrollo cognitivo y actividad ocupacional: Una revisión crítica

Abstract

The impact of prenatal nutritional status, assessed through birth weight (BW) and their effects in the short, medium and long-term on nutritional status, cognitive development and job status in the adult life, has been a problem of interest for several researchers; as regards, some of these report a positive and significant association between these variables and others do not find any relation. Children with insufficient, low or very low BW despite the early more deteriorate nutritional status should present higher risk for brain maturation, failure cognitive development and lowered head circumference which implies both lowered brain volume and intellectual development. In the short and medium-term, this situation damages the learning process at schoolage, while in the long-term this might condition the quality of jobs. At present, the body of knowledge pinpoints that findings related to these associations is not conclusive verifying a great controversy in these matters. This review a