Gestational weight change and childhood body composition trajectories from pregnancy to early adolescence

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Maternal-Fetal Medicine
• Developmental Biology

Background:

• Early life exposures, including maternal weight changes during pregnancy, can influence long-term child body composition.
• Understanding these trajectories is crucial for identifying critical windows for intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a mother-child dyad trajectory model to examine how gestational weight gain (GWG) shapes childhood body composition.
• To investigate sex-specific patterns in the joint trajectories of GWG and child body composition.

Main Methods:

• A cohort of 337 pregnant mothers and their children were followed from pregnancy to age 14.
• Gestational weight gain (GWG) and child body composition (weight, height, body fat percentage, waist circumference) were measured and jointly modeled.
• A latent class model incorporated pre-pregnancy BMI to identify distinct trajectory patterns.

Main Results:

• Four distinct prenatal and child body composition trajectory patterns were identified.
• Sex-specific patterns emerged, with girls showing more distinct trajectories than boys.
• Girls whose mothers had high GWG exhibited higher BMI z-scores, waist circumference, and body fat from ages 5 to 14.

Conclusions:

• Joint modeling revealed sex-specific associations between GWG and child body composition.
• Higher GWG profoundly affected females' growth trajectories, suggesting sex differences in developmental programming.
• These findings highlight the critical role of maternal weight management during pregnancy for daughters' long-term health.