Maternal Nutritional Status and Intrauterine Programming: Epigenetic Mechanisms and Their Impact on Offspring Health
Klaudia Pawlikowska1, Anna Koryszewska-Bagińska2, Małgorzata Konieczna2
1Students Scientific Club Agar, Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, 00-575 Warsaw, Poland.
Nutrients
|July 28, 2026
Summary
Maternal nutrition significantly impacts fetal development and long-term child health. Optimizing maternal nutrition before and during pregnancy is crucial for preventing adverse outcomes and promoting healthy offspring development.
Area of Science:
- Reproductive Health
- Developmental Biology
- Nutritional Science
Background:
- Maternal nutrition before and during pregnancy is a key modifiable factor influencing fetal development and lifelong offspring health.
- Both undernutrition and obesity in mothers are linked to adverse metabolic, cardiovascular, neurodevelopmental, and immune outcomes in offspring.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review experimental, clinical, and epidemiological evidence on maternal nutritional status, intrauterine programming, and offspring health.
- To synthesize findings on the impact of maternal undernutrition and obesity on fetal development and long-term health outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Narrative review of literature from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (2000-2026).
- Search terms included maternal nutrition, undernutrition, obesity, intrauterine programming, DOHaD, epigenetics, DNA methylation, microRNA, and offspring health.
- Focus on papers published after 2015.
Main Results:
- Maternal undernutrition is associated with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and increased risks of cognitive and metabolic disorders.
- Maternal overweight or obesity is linked to macrosomia and increased risks of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic dysfunction.
- Both extremes of maternal nutrition may negatively affect offspring psychological health, with potential epigenetic mechanisms involved.
Conclusions:
- Optimizing maternal nutritional and metabolic status before and during pregnancy is vital for favorable intrauterine programming and improved long-term offspring health.
- Understanding epigenetic mechanisms can guide targeted nutritional and preventive interventions.
- Human observational studies have limitations due to associative nature and confounding postnatal factors.
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