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Pediatrics

Maternal body mass index, gestational weight gain, and childhood abdominal, pericardial, and liver fat assessed by magnetic resonance imaging

International Journal of Obesity volume 43, pages 581–593 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives

Maternal obesity and excessive gestational weight gain are associated with an increased risk of obesity in offspring. It remains unclear whether maternal adiposity also affects organ fat, which has important adverse cardiometabolic health consequences and whether the associations reflect intrauterine causal mechanisms. We examined the associations of parental pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and gestational weight gain with general, abdominal, pericardial, and liver fat in 10-year-old children.

Subjects/Methods

In a population-based prospective cohort study among 2354 parents and their children, we obtained pre-pregnancy maternal and paternal BMI and gestational weight gain and offspring BMI, fat mass index (total fat/height4) by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and subcutaneous fat index (subcutaneous fat/height4), visceral fat index (visceral fat/height3), pericardial fat index (pericardial fat/height3), and liver fat fraction by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 10 years.

Results

A 1-standard deviation score (SDS) higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI was associated with higher childhood BMI (difference 0.32 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28, 0.36) SDS), fat mass index (difference 0.28 (95% CI 0.24, 0.31) SDS), subcutaneous fat index (difference 0.26 (95% CI 0.22, 0.30) SDS), visceral fat index (difference 0.24 (95% CI 0.20, 0.28) SDS), pericardial fat index (difference 0.12 (95% CI 0.08, 0.16) SDS), and liver fat fraction (difference 0.15 (95% CI 0.11, 0.19) SDS). After conditioning each MRI adiposity measure on BMI at 10 years, higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI remained associated with higher childhood subcutaneous and visceral fat indices. Smaller but not statistically different effect estimates were observed for paternal BMI. Gestational weight gain was not consistently associated with organ fat.

Conclusions

Higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, but not gestational weight gain, was associated with higher general and organ fat. Similar associations of pre-pregnancy maternal and paternal BMI with offspring adiposity suggest a role of family shared lifestyle factors and genetics.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of general practitioners, hospitals, midwives, and pharmacies in Rotterdam. The article is also available online as part of a thesis (https://www.generationr.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/dissertation_Susana-Santos.pdf).

Author contributions

SS and VWVJ: conceived the study; SS, CM, and VWVJ: participated in the collection and statistical analysis of the data; SS and VWVJ: participated in the interpretation of the results; SS and VWVJ: drafted the manuscript; CM, JFF, LD, and RG: critically reviewed the manuscript; VWVJ: had primary responsibility for final content; and all authors: read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

The general design of the Generation R Study is made possible by financial support from the Erasmus MC, University Medical Center, Rotterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw), Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and Ministry of Youth and Families. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), project EarlyNutrition under grant agreement no. 289346, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 633595 (DynaHEALTH), and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 733206 (LifeCycle Project). LD received a grant from ERA-Net on Biomarkers for Nutrition and Health (696295, Horizon 2020; 529051014, ZonMW, The Netherlands, ALPHABET). RG received funding from the Dutch Heart Foundation (grant number 2017T013) and the Dutch Diabetes Foundation (grant number 2017.81.002). VWVJ received grants from the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (VIDI 016.136.361) and the European Research Council (Consolidator Grant, ERC-2014-CoG-648916).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Generation R Study Group, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Susana Santos, Claire Monnereau, Janine F. Felix, Romy Gaillard & Vincent W. V. Jaddoe

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Sophia Children’s Hospital, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Susana Santos, Claire Monnereau, Janine F. Felix, Liesbeth Duijts, Romy Gaillard & Vincent W. V. Jaddoe

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Claire Monnereau, Janine F. Felix & Vincent W. V. Jaddoe

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  1. Susana Santos
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Correspondence to Vincent W. V. Jaddoe.

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Santos, S., Monnereau, C., Felix, J.F. et al. Maternal body mass index, gestational weight gain, and childhood abdominal, pericardial, and liver fat assessed by magnetic resonance imaging. Int J Obes 43, 581–593 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-018-0186-y

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