Developmental disorders in children born to women with sickle cell disease: A report from the Boston Birth Cohort.

Children exposed to maternal sickle cell disease (SCD) have many theoretical risks for developmental disorders, but little is known about long-term outcomes for these children. We used the Boston Birth Cohort to compare developmental outcomes between children exposed to maternal SCD and matched, unexposed controls. Children with exposure to maternal SCD had increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (OR 5.12, 95% CI 1.36-19.19,  = 0.02) and obesity (OR 2.74, 95% CI 1.10-6.87,  = 0.03). In utero and/or environmental exposures may help explain these findings. Further studies of outcomes of children born to women with SCD are needed.