Birth by cesarean section and schizophrenia: results from the multicenter FACE-SZ data-set

Abstract Children born by cesarean section (“c-birth”) are known to have different microbiota and a natural history of different disorders including allergy, asthma and overweight compared to vaginally born (“v-birth”) children. C-birth is not known to increase the risk of schizophrenia (SZ), but to be associated with an earlier age at onset. To further explore possible links between c-birth and SZ, we compared clinical and biological characteristics of c-born SZ patients compared to v-born ones. Four hundred and fifty-four stable community-dwelling SZ patients (mean age = 32.4 years, 75.8 % male gender) were systematically included in the multicentre network of FondaMental Expert Center for schizophrenia. Overall, 49 patients (10.8 %) were c-born. These subjects had a mean age at schizophrenia onset of 21.9 ± 6.7 years, a mean duration of illness of 10.5 ± 8.7 years and a mean PANSS total score of 70.9 ± 18.7. None of these variables was significantly associated with c-birth. Multivariate analysis showed that c-birth remained associated with lower CRP levels (aOR = 0.07; 95 % CI 0.009–0.555, p = 0.012) and lower premorbid ability (aOR = 0.945; 95 % CI 0.898–0.994, p = 0.03). No significant association between birth by C-section and, respectively, age, age at illness onset, sex, education level, psychotic and mood symptomatology, antipsychotic treatment, tobacco consumption, birth weight and mothers suffering from...
Source: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research