Combined maternal central adiposity measures in relation to infant birth size

Improvement of prenatal identification of large-for-gestational-age (LGA) infants could lower the risk for adverse outcomes. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the association of a combination of maternal waist circumference (WC) and abdominal fat depths with infant birth size. A cohort study including 1240 women was performed between 2015 and 2018 at Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden. Maternal WC was measured at the first antenatal visit, and visceral (VF) and subcutaneous (SCF) fat depths by ultrasound at the second-trimester anomaly scan. Waist circumference, VF, and SCF were categorized as low or high (cut-offs WC ≥ 88 cm, VF ≥ 54 mm, SCF ≥ 21 mm). Outcomes were birth weight standard deviation score (BWSDS) and LGA (BWSDS > 90th and > 97th percentile). Secondary outcome was small-for-gestational-age (SGA, BWSDS < 10th and < 3rd percentile). Univariate analysis of variance and logistic regression analyses were performed adjusted for maternal weight, height, parity, smoking, country of birth, pregestational diabetes, and chronic hypertension. For both high and low WC, high VF was positively associated with BWSDS and LGA. There was no association with SGA. The results did not demonstrate any value of the combination of WC and fat depth measures in predicting infant birth size but suggested VF as a marker for large infants.