Babies born to short women may die before age 5

To reach their findings, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) looked at data from India’s 2005-06 National Family Health Survey, in which more than 50,000 Indian children under age five were included.

After analyzing the data, the HSPH research team, headed by S.V. Subramanian of the HSPH Department of Society, Human Development and Health, found a clear link between the mothers’ height and a number of indicators of her children's health, including risk of death, risk of being underweight, and anemia.

They found that children born to short mothers were more likely to die before they reach the age of five that those born to taller women.

More precisely, children of women shorter than 4 foot 9 inches were 70 percent more likely to die before age five than those whose mothers were at least 5 foot 3 inches tall. This rate was 86 percent for underweight and 94 percent for stunting, Dr Subramanian said.

Further, a 1cm increase in maternal height decreased the risk of child mortality by 2 percent as well as lowered the risk of underweight and stunting by 3 percent and the risk of child wasting by 1 percent.

Maternal height was viewed as an indicator reflecting the environment one grows up in, and thus revealing a woman's overall health and nutritional status during her childhood. The study suggests Indian women’s childhood health status impose long-lasting adverse effects on the health conditions of next generation.

Dr Subramanian said, "Shorter women may have experienced nutritional insult during their growing years. What this study is showing is that the health of mother during her childhood is not only significant for her during childhood or adulthood but is related to her offspring's outcome, including mortality. I think it emphasizes the need to catch the children young in terms of health intervention, ideally before two years."

Some scientists believe that the size of a woman's uterusdefine may be the biological link between her height and her offspring's health, with shorter women who have smaller uteruses are more prone to developing complications during pregnancy and therefore giving birth to less healthy children.

"The main finding is a robust association between mothers' height and the health of her offspring in terms of risk of death and anthropometric failure. Because we also controlled for paternal height, and did not find an association between paternal height and offspring mortality, it seems that the inter-generational transmission could be happening through intra-uterine pathways via the shared environment of the foetus and mother and child/mother after birth," Dr Subramanian said.

"Paternal height, however, was associated with child underweight and stunting, but the effects seem slightly stronger for maternal height," he added.

Dr Subramanian and colleagues Leland Ackerson from the University of Massachusetts, George Davey Smith from the University of Bristol reported their findings in the April 22 issue of the `Journal of the American Medical Association'.