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Pediatrics

Maternal preconception weight trajectories are associated with offsprings’ childhood obesity

International Journal of Obesity volume 42, pages 1265–1274 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgements

The research on which this paper is based was conducted as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health by the University of Queensland and the University of Newcastle. We are grateful to the Australian Government Department of Health for funding and to the women who provided the survey data. AAA supported by International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and UQ Centennial scholarship. The MatCH study is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) (APP1059550) and GDM holds NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship (APP1121844).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Queensland, School of Public Health, Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Research, Herston, Qld, 4006, Australia

    Akilew Awoke Adane, Annette Dobson, Leigh Tooth & Gita D. Mishra

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  1. Akilew Awoke Adane
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Correspondence to Akilew Awoke Adane.

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Electronic supplementary material

41366_2018_78_MOESM1_ESM.docx

The association between preconception BMI trajectories and offsprings’ childhood BMI after excluding children born to women with GDM and /or HDP (n = 2 483)

41366_2018_78_MOESM2_ESM.docx

The association between preconception BMI trajectories and offsprings’ childhood BMI (sample restricted to the first births, n = 1 156)

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Adane, A.A., Dobson, A., Tooth, L. et al. Maternal preconception weight trajectories are associated with offsprings’ childhood obesity. Int J Obes 42, 1265–1274 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-018-0078-1

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