Prenatal growth and risk of occlusive and haemorrhagic stroke in Swedish men and women born 1915-29: historical cohort study

The cohort comprises all 14 611 births in the Uppsala Academic Hospital between 1915 and 1929. Analyses were restricted to singletons born at 30-45 weeks' gestation for whom information was available in the 1960 and 1970 censuses. Data on occurrence of first stroke were obtained from the Swedish national hospital discharge register and from the national cause of death register. The 10 853 men and women had 991 first strokes: 156 haemorrhagic, 775 occlusive, and 60 ill defined. According to this study impaired fetal growth is strongly associated with haemorraghic stroke, but not with occlusive stroke.