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  • The ORACLE Children Study: educational outcomes at 11 years of age following antenatal prescription of erythromycin or co-amoxiclav

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Original article
The ORACLE Children Study: educational outcomes at 11 years of age following antenatal prescription of erythromycin or co-amoxiclav
  1. Neil Marlow1,
  2. Hannah Bower2,
  3. David Jones2,
  4. Peter Brocklehurst1,
  5. Sara Kenyon3,
  6. Katie Pike4,
  7. David Taylor5,
  8. Alison Salt6
  1. 1Institute for Women's Health, University College London, London, UK
  2. 2Health Sciences Department, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  3. 3Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, UK
  4. 4Clinical Trials and Evaluation Unit, School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  5. 5Maternal and Newborn Health Initiative, International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, London, UK
  6. 6Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Professor Neil Marlow, Institute for Women's Health, University College London, 74 Huntley Street, London WC1E 6AU, UK; n.marlow{at}ucl.ac.uk

Abstract

Background Antibiotics used for women in spontaneous preterm labour without overt infection, in contrast to those with preterm rupture of membranes, are associated with altered functional outcomes in their children.

Methods From the National Pupil Database, we used Key Stage 2 scores, national test scores in school year 6 at 11 years of age, to explore the hypothesis that erythromycin and co-amoxiclav were associated with poorer educational outcomes within the ORACLE Children Study.

Results Anonymised scores for 97% of surviving children born to mothers recruited to ORACLE and resident in England were analysed against treatment group adjusting for key available socio-demographic potential confounders. No association with crude or with adjusted scores for English, mathematics or science was observed by maternal antibiotic group in either women with preterm rupture of membranes or spontaneous preterm labour with intact membranes. While the proportion receiving special educational needs was similar in each group (range 31.6–34.4%), it was higher than the national rate of 19%.

Conclusions Despite evidence that antibiotics are associated with increased functional impairment at 7 years, educational test scores and special needs at 11 years of age show no differences between trial groups.

Trial registration number ISCRT Number 52995660 (original ORACLE trial number).

  • School Health
  • Fetal Medicine
  • Neurodevelopment
  • Outcomes research

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2015-310144

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors NM, AS and SK conceived the idea, HB carried out the analysis under the supervision of DJ and NM wrote the initial draft of the paper. All authors contributed to the design of the study, interpretation of the results and revisions of the draft.

    • Funding Medical Research Council (ISCRT Number 52995660).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Data are available after discussion with the Oracle Study Investigators in accordance with our data-sharing policy.