Family Immigrant Status and Developmental Delay among Prematurely Born Children in the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health

Objectives: We investigated whether family immigrant status influences the likelihood that prematurely born children will experience developmental delays.

Methods: We examined developmental delay among 10,145 children who were born preterm. Using the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health, we conducted multivariate logistic regression analysis to compare developmental delay among children of immigrants and children of US born parents.

Results: Eleven percent of all prematurely born children had ever had developmental delay- 8.3% of children of immigrants had ever experienced delays versus 15.6% of children of US born parents. Immigrant status was associated with having a developmental delay. Compared to children of US born parents, children of immigrants had lower unadjusted odds of developmental delay (OR=0.334; P<.001). The likelihood of ever having experienced developmental delay also increased with age (OR=1.044; P<.001), male gender (OR=1.479; P<.001), and living in a household below 100% of the federal poverty line (OR=1.539; P<.05). After adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics, children of foreign-born parents still had lower odds of having developmental delay compared to children of US born parents (OR=0.446; P<.001).

Conclusion: Prematurely born children of immigrants were less likely to have developmental delays than children of US born parents. These findings are in line with research supporting the Healthy Migrant effect and suggest that the effect still applies even for children who were born prematurely. Understanding how immigrant families can be protective of preterm children’s development can be helpful for improving outcomes for preterm children of US born parents.