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Maternal inflammatory bowel disease and offspring body size: a prospective cohort study
Teresa A Ajslev1, Thorkild I A Sorensen, Tine Jess
1Institute of Preventive Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark. ta@ipm.regionh.dk
Insights
Children born to mothers with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are smaller at birth but catch up in size during childhood. Maternal IBD may increase overweight risk in daughters by age seven.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Growth and Development
- Maternal Health and Pregnancy Outcomes
- Gastroenterology and Immunology
Background:
- Maternal inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) impact on offspring intrauterine growth and birth size is not fully understood.
- Long-term consequences of maternal IBD for child development require further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the growth patterns of children born to mothers with Crohn's disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC).
- To assess the association between maternal IBD and offspring birth size and later childhood development.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Danish National Birth Cohort (40,640 mother-child pairs) with 7-year follow-up.
- Linked birth cohort data with the Danish National Disease Register to identify maternal IBD diagnoses (50 CD, 147 UC).
- Employed regression analyses, controlling for covariates, to examine growth associations.
Main Results:
- Children of mothers with IBD were significantly shorter at birth (CD: -0.82 cm, UC: -0.41 cm).
- Offspring of IBD mothers tended towards lower birth weight (CD: -119.7g, UC: -64.0g).
- By age 7, daughters of CD mothers showed a tendency towards overweight (OR 2.47) and increased waist circumference (3.48 cm).
Conclusions:
- Maternal IBD is confirmed to be associated with reduced birth size in offspring.
- Offspring body size generally normalized during the first year of life.
- Maternal IBD may influence later childhood body composition, particularly in daughters.
Background:
Maternal inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may influence intrauterine growth and hence size at birth, but the consequences for offspring in later life remain uncertain. This study investigated the growth of children of mothers with Crohn's disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC).
Methods:
The Danish National Birth Cohort, comprising 40,640 mother-child pairs with 7-year follow-up of children's height and weight, were linked to the Danish National Disease Register, whereby 50 mothers with CD and 147 mothers with UC were identified. Associations were tested by regression analyses, taking several covariates into account.
Results:
Children of mothers with IBD were significantly shorter at birth than children of unaffected mothers (adjusted; CD, difference in cm, -0.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], -1.39 to -0.25; UC, -0.41; 95% CI, -0.75 to -0.07) and they tended to be of lower birth weight (adjusted; CD, difference in grams, -119.7; 95% CI, -246.7 to 7.3; UC, -64.0; 95% CI, -138.7 to 10.7). However, during the first year of life children of IBD mothers reached similar body sizes as children of unaffected mothers. At the 7-year follow-up, girls, but not boys, of CD mothers tended to be overweight (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 2.47; 95% CI, 0.98-6.24) and had increased waist circumference (adjusted difference in cm, 3.48; 95% CI, 1.40-5.58) compared to the unaffected population.
Conclusions:
The present study confirms that maternal history of IBD leads to decreased birth size in offspring. Reassuringly, body size in children of IBD mothers approached body size in children of unaffected mothers during childhood.
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