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Smoking during pregnancy and offspring fat and lean mass in childhood

Sam D Leary1, George Davey Smith, Imogen S Rogers

  • 1Department of Community-Based Medicine, University of Bristol, 24, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TQ, United Kingdom.

Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.)
|December 26, 2006
PubMed

Insights

Maternal smoking during pregnancy is linked to increased offspring total body fat. Partner smoking also showed associations, suggesting social factors may play a role alongside direct effects.

Area of Science:

  • Reproductive Health
  • Pediatric Obesity
  • Environmental Epidemiology

Background:

  • Maternal smoking during pregnancy is a known risk factor for childhood obesity, typically assessed by Body Mass Index (BMI).
  • Previous research has primarily relied on BMI, which may not fully capture body composition changes.
  • Understanding the impact on specific body composition metrics like total fat, truncal fat, and lean mass is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the association between maternal and partner smoking during pregnancy and offspring's body composition.
  • To examine the relationship with total fat mass, truncal fat mass, and lean mass in childhood.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of 5689 white singletons from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).
  • Maternal smoking data collected for at least one trimester during pregnancy.
  • Offspring body composition assessed by Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) at a mean age of 9.9 years.

Main Results:

  • Maternal smoking during pregnancy was associated with higher offspring BMI and total fat mass.
  • These associations remained significant after adjusting for confounders.
  • Maternal smoking also correlated with lean mass and truncal fat mass; partner smoking showed similar but weaker associations.

Conclusions:

  • Maternal smoking at any point during pregnancy is associated with increased offspring total fat mass by age 9.9.
  • The similar strength of association for partner smoking suggests potential confounding by social factors.
  • Further research is needed to disentangle direct effects from social influences.
Abstract

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