Perinatal factors associated with sensory processing difficulties in infancy: Findings from the Etude Longitudinale Francaise depuis l'Enfance (ELFE) French national birth cohort

Abstract

Background

Sensory processing involves the nervous system receiving, modulating, and responding to sensory stimuli. Clinical samples have elevated rates of sensory processing difficulties, less is known about sensory processing at population-level. We aimed to investigate patterns of sensory processing in infancy and their association with perinatal factors.

Methods

Data from a French prospective birth cohort of 9861 babies were used to identify latent sensory classes of 1-year-olds. Multinomial logistic regression examined whether sex, cumulative sociodemographic risk or perinatal factors, were associated with these classes.

Results

Three classes, ‘typical sensory’ (71.2 %), ‘definite sensory difficulties’ (21.3 %) and a ‘possible sensory difficulties’ group (7.5 %) best fit the data. The ‘typical’ group were easy to calm, adaptable, had low anxiety with no feeding concerns. The ‘definite’ group were the least easy to calm, least accepting of confined spaces, least adaptable and most anxious. They exhibited more sleeping and feeding problems. The ‘possible’ group were similar to the ‘typical’ group apart from being less adaptable with increased sleep difficulties. Dose-response relationships were observed between low 1.5 (relative risk ratio (RRR) CI 1.3–1.9), moderate 2.3 (CI 1.9–2.7) and high 3.5 (CI 2.6–4.8) sociodemographic risk and increasing number of pregnancy-specific adverse experiences:1.5 (CI 1.2–1.9), 1.9 (CI 1.5–2.5), 2.1 (CI 1.6–2.9), 2.4 (CI 1.6–3.6), 3.0 (CI 1.7–5.3) with an increasing risk of sensory difficulties.

Conclusions

Using public and patient involvement to guide sensory indicator selection for latent class analyses we found that post-natal sociodemographic risk and adverse pregnancy-specific experiences were most strongly associated with sensory difficulties in infants.