How health before pregnancy impacts pregnancy outcomes and the long-term health of mother and child and educational outcomes of child.

Background
Health before pregnancy, an individual's health behaviors and wider determinants of health (e.g. social, economic, and structural factors) all influence pregnancy outcomes (including the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight and maternal and neonatal complications), and have long-term consequences for the health and development of the future generation.

A recent national report card used the Maternity Services Dataset to investigate the state of women's preconception health in England. This work identified 32 preconception factors within the routinely collected data and found that 9 in 10 pregnant women have at least one preconception indicator that presents a risk for mother and/or baby (Schoenaker et al., 2023).

While there has been a plethora of research into the short-term health impacts of preconception health, including multiple systematic reviews (Daly et al., 2021), there is currently a lack of research into the longer-term health outcomes and a particular lack of research into the developmental impacts of preconception health on the future generation.

Aim
This PhD aims to investigate how preconception health impacts pregnancy outcomes, as well as the longer-term health of mother and child and educational outcomes of the child.