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Epidemiology and Population Health

Pre-pregnancy body mass index and gut microbiota of mothers and children 5 years postpartum

International Journal of Obesity volume 47, pages 807–816 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) has been linked to altered gut microbiota in women shortly after delivery and in their offspring in the first few years of life. But little is known about how long these differences persist.

Methods

We followed 180 mothers and children from pregnancy until 5-year postpartum in the Gen3G cohort (Canada, enrolled 2010–2013). At 5 years postpartum we collected stool samples from mothers and children and estimated the gut microbiota by 16 S rRNA sequencing (V4 region) using Illumina MiSeq, and assigning amplicon sequence variants (ASV). We examined whether overall microbiota composition (as measured by microbiota β diversity) was more similar between mother-child pairs compared to between mothers or between children. We also assessed whether mother-child pair sharing of overall microbiota composition differed by the weight status of mothers before pregnancy and of children at 5-year. Furthermore, in mothers, we examined whether pre-pregnancy BMI, BMI 5-year postpartum, and change in BMI between time points was associated with maternal gut microbiota 5-year postpartum. In children, we further examined associations of maternal pre-pregnancy BMI and child 5-year BMI z-score with child 5-year gut microbiota.

Results

Mother-child pairs had greater similarity in overall microbiome composition compared to between mothers and between children. In mothers, higher pre-pregnancy BMI and 5-year postpartum BMI were associated with lower microbiota observed ASV richness and Chao 1 index; in children’s gut microbiota, higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI was weakly associated with lower microbiota Shannon index, whereas child’s 5-year BMI z-score was associated with higher observed ASV richness. Pre-pregnancy BMI was also linked to differential abundances of several microbial ASVs in the Ruminococcaceae and Lachnospiraceae families, but no specific ASV had overlapping associations with BMI measures in both mothers and children.

Conclusions

Pre-pregnancy BMI was associated with gut microbiota diversity and composition of mothers and children 5 years after birth, however, the nature and direction of most associations differed for mothers and children. Future studies are encouraged to confirm our findings and look into potential mechanisms or factors that may drive these associations.

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Fig. 1: Comparisons of 5-year microbiota similarity based on β diversity metrics.
Fig. 2: Proportion of variance in maternal and children’s gut microbiota β diversity that was explained by body mass index (BMI) measures.
Fig. 3: Microbial taxa that were statistically differentially abundant according to body mass index (BMI) measures in mothers and children.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

NTM was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K01HL141589. Gen3G was supported by a Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) operating grant (to MFH, grant #20697); a Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) operating grant (to MFH grant #MOP 115071 and to LB #PJT-152989); and a Diabète Québec grant (to PP). LB is a senior research scholar from the FRQS. MFH was a recipient of an American Diabetes Association (ADA) Pathways To Stop Diabetes Accelerator Award (#1-15-ACE-26). EM was funded by an operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) #BMB 389354.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Tiange Liu, Fan Jia.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Tiange Liu, Fan Jia, Moira K. Differding & Noel T. Mueller

  2. Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Ni Zhao

  3. Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS), Sherbrooke, QC, Canada

    Myriam Doyon, Luigi Bouchard, Patrice Perron & Marie-France Hivert

  4. Department of Biochemistry and Functional Genomics, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada

    Luigi Bouchard & Eric Massé

  5. Department of Medical Biology, CIUSSS-SLSJ, Saguenay, QC, Canada

    Luigi Bouchard & Renée Guérin

  6. Department of Medicine, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada

    Patrice Perron & Marie-France Hivert

  7. Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Marie-France Hivert

  8. Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Noel T. Mueller

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Contributions

TL and FJ analyzed and interpreted the data, and also drafted the manuscript. NTM and MFH developed the research question, designed the study, helped interpret the data, and contributed to writing the manuscript. MD, LB, PP, and MFH were involved with the conception and creation of the Gen3G cohort study. All authors edited, read, and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Noel T. Mueller.

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Liu, T., Jia, F., Differding, M.K. et al. Pre-pregnancy body mass index and gut microbiota of mothers and children 5 years postpartum. Int J Obes 47, 807–816 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-023-01322-4

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