Early life characteristics, social mobility during childhood and risk of stroke in later life: findings from a Swedish cohort.

AIMS: To investigate if early life characteristics and social mobility during childhood are associated with incident thrombotic stroke (TS), haemorrhagic stroke (HS) and other stroke (OS). METHODS: Our study population consists of all live births at Uppsala University Hospital in 1915-1929 (Uppsala Birth Cohort; n = 14,192), of whom 5532 males and 5061 females were singleton births and lived in Sweden in 1964. We followed them from 1 January 1964 until first diagnosis of stroke (in the National Patient Register or Causes of Death Register), emigration, death, or until 31 December 2008. Data were analysed using Cox regression, stratifying by gender. RESULTS: Gestational age was negatively associated with TS and OS in women only. Women had increased risk of TS if they were born early preterm (