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Associations Between Gestational Weight Gain and Children's Neurodevelopment at 3 Years of Age

Yongbin Xiong1,2, Yangqian Jiang1,2, Wenjing Chang3,4

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine and Children's Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.)
|April 6, 2026
PubMed

Insights

Excessive or insufficient gestational weight gain (GWG) and specific GWG trajectories are linked to poorer child neurodevelopment. These findings highlight GWG as a modifiable factor for early intervention in mother-child health.

Area of Science:

  • Obstetrics and Gynecology
  • Pediatric Neurology
  • Public Health

Background:

  • Gestational weight gain (GWG) is a critical factor influencing maternal and child health outcomes.
  • Understanding the impact of GWG patterns on early childhood neurodevelopment is essential for public health initiatives.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the associations between gestational weight gain (GWG) categories and trajectories and children's neurodevelopment at age three.
  • To identify specific GWG patterns that may pose risks to cognitive and motor development in early childhood.

Main Methods:

  • Prospective analysis of 4177 mother-child pairs from the Jiangsu Birth Cohort.
  • GWG assessed by categories (insufficient, optimal, excessive) and trajectories using repeated prenatal measurements.
  • Children's neurodevelopment evaluated at age three using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Version-III Screening Test; Robust Poisson regression used for analysis.

Main Results:

  • Excessive GWG was associated with a 50% higher risk of noncompetent cognitive development (RR=1.50).
  • Insufficient GWG increased the risk of noncompetent fine motor skills by 30% (RR=1.30) and cognitive development when breastfeeding duration was ≤12 months (RR=2.07).
  • A "Slow-Rapid" GWG trajectory correlated with increased risks for noncompetent cognitive development (RR=2.51) and expressive communication (RR=1.94).

Conclusions:

  • Both excessive and insufficient GWG, along with the "Slow-Rapid" trajectory, are associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in children.
  • Given that GWG is modifiable, these findings support the development of targeted early interventions for at-risk mother-child dyads.
  • Optimizing GWG during pregnancy may be a key strategy to promote healthy neurodevelopment in offspring.
Abstract

Keywords:
breastfeeding durationchildren's neurodevelopmentgestational weight gainweight gain trajectory

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