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Maternal preconception weight trajectories are associated with offsprings' childhood obesity
Akilew Awoke Adane1, Annette Dobson2, Leigh Tooth2
1The University of Queensland, School of Public Health, Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Research, Herston, Qld, 4006, Australia. akilew.adane@uq.net.au.
Insights
Mothers with chronically high body mass index (BMI) trajectories before conception and significant weight gain between pregnancies increase their children's risk of being overweight or obese. This highlights a dose-response relationship between maternal BMI and offspring weight status.
Area of Science:
- Reproductive Health
- Pediatric Health
- Obesity Research
Background:
- Maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) is a known determinant of offspring weight.
- Understanding the long-term impact of maternal BMI trajectories and interpregnancy weight changes on child BMI is crucial for public health interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between mothers' preconception BMI trajectories over 6-7 years and their children's childhood BMI.
- To examine the relationship between maternal BMI changes between pregnancies and the second-born child's BMI.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health and the Mothers and their Children's Health study (1606 mothers, 2733 children).
- Employed latent class growth modeling to identify preconception BMI trajectories.
- Used multinomial and binary logistic regression to analyze associations with offspring BMI categories (underweight, normal, overweight, obese).
Main Results:
- Identified three maternal preconception BMI trajectories: 'normative' (61.2%), 'chronically overweight' (30.7%), and 'chronically obese' (8.1%).
- Children of 'chronically overweight' and 'chronically obese' mothers showed significantly higher risks of being overweight and obese compared to those with 'normative' BMI trajectories.
- Mothers with high interpregnancy weight gain (≥4 BMI units) had second-born children at increased risk of being overweight or obese.
Conclusions:
- Demonstrated strong, dose-response associations between maternal preconception BMI trajectories and offspring childhood BMI.
- Findings underscore the importance of maternal weight management before and between pregnancies for preventing childhood obesity.
Objectives:
This study aimed to examine the associations between (1) mothers' preconception body mass index (BMI) trajectories over 6-7 years and offspring childhood BMI, and (2) mothers' BMI changes between first and second pregnancy and the second-born child's BMI.
Methods:
We used data (1606 mothers with 2733 children with mean age 7.7 years, SD 2.9) from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health and the Mothers and their Children's Health study. Preconception BMI trajectories were identified using latent class growth modeling. Children were categorized as underweight, normal, overweight or obese based on age and sex-specific BMI cut-off points for children. Multinomial and binary logistic regression were used for analyses.
Results:
We identified three preconception BMI trajectories, named as 'normative' (61.2%), 'chronically overweight' (30.7%), and 'chronically obese' (8.1%). Children born to 'chronically overweight' and 'chronically obese' mothers were more likely to be overweight than normal weight relative to children born to women with a 'normative' BMI trajectory. The corresponding adjusted relative risk ratios (RRRs) (95% confidence interval [CI]) of childhood overweight were 1.75 (1.33, 2.31) for chronically overweight mothers and 2.48 (1.65, 3.73) for chronically obese mothers. Similarly, we found a much stronger association between 'chronically overweight' and 'chronically obese' BMI trajectories and childhood risk of obesity; RRR (95% CI), 2.49 (1.41, 4.40) and 6.65 (3.40, 13.01), respectively. Second-born children of mothers with high interpregnancy weight gain (≥4 BMI units) were also at higher risk of being overweight or obese (OR = 2.20, 95% CI: 1.02, 4.75) compared with children of mothers with stable interpregnancy weight (gain or loss of 1 BMI unit or less).
Conclusions:
In this population-based prospective cohort study, we found strong dose-response associations between preconception BMI trajectories and offsprings' childhood BMI.