PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Foo, Damien
AU  - Sarna, Mohinder
AU  - Pereira, Gavin
AU  - Moore, Hannah C
AU  - Regan, Annette K
TI  - Association between maternal influenza vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood: a longitudinal, population-based linked cohort study
AID  - 10.1136/archdischild-2022-324269
DP  - 2023 Aug 01
TA  - Archives of Disease in Childhood
PG  - 647--653
VI  - 108
IP  - 8
4099  - http://adc.bmj.com/content/108/8/647.short
4100  - http://adc.bmj.com/content/108/8/647.full
SO  - Arch Dis Child2023 Aug 01; 108
AB  - Objective To assess the association between in utero exposure to seasonal inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) and the risk of a diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental disorder in early childhood.Design Retrospective cohort study.Setting Population-based birth registry linked with health administrative databases in Western Australia (WA).Participants Singleton, liveborn children born between 1 April 2012 and 1 July 2016 in WA.Exposure Receipt of seasonal IIV during pregnancy obtained from a state-wide antenatal vaccination database.Main outcome measures Clinical diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental disorder was recorded from hospital inpatient and emergency department records. We used Cox proportional hazard regression, weighted by the inverse-probability of treatment (vaccination), to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) of neurodevelopmental disorders associated with in utero exposure to seasonal IIV.Results The study included 140 514 children of whom, 15 663 (11.2%) were exposed to seasonal IIV in utero. The prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders was 5.4%, including mental or behavioural (0.4%), neurological (5.1%), seizure (2.2%) and sleep disorders (2.7%). Maternal IIV was not associated with increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders (HR 1.00; 95% CI 0.91 to 1.08). Children exposed in the first trimester had a lower risk of seizure disorders (adjusted HR [aHR] 0.73; 95% CI 0.54 to 0.998), and preterm children exposed any time during pregnancy had a lower risk of sleep disorders (aHR 0.63; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.98).Conclusions We did not observe increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders following in utero exposure to seasonal IIV. Although we observed some evidence for lower risk of seizure and sleep disorders, additional studies are required to confirm.No data are available. This study is part of a larger linked cohort study and was guided by the study protocol described elsewhere. The linked administrative data are de-identified and are not owned by the authors. Access to the data is approved by the Data Custodians and provided by the WA Data Linkage Branch within the WA Department of Health (https://www.datalinkage-wa.org.au/contact-us/). The use of the data is restricted to named researchers only.