The relative lack of associations between maternal diet or body composition and milk composition at Cebu is consistent with past studies and suggests that milk composition may be buffered against fluctuations in maternal dietary intake or nutritional status. We speculate that the tendency for milk composition to vary between populations faced with different nutritional ecologies, but to show minimal responsiveness to intake during lactation, may enhance the reliability of milk composition as a stable intergenerational cue of typical local environmental quality.

The association between maternal body composition, milk leptin, and infant growth persists in mothers with lean body composition. Milk leptin is not associated with growth in older infants.

Levels of overweight/obesity and inflammation in young adulthood, before pregnancy, are important predictors of inflammation in the third trimester of pregnancy. These results may have implications for addressing the growing concern about the contribution of obesity to adverse birth outcomes, and they suggest that factors that influence the regulation of inflammation, before pregnancy and independent of adiposity, may be important in shaping the inflammatory response to pregnancy.

Low hemoglobin levels of primiparous women in this sample might indicate increased nutritional stress associated with first pregnancy.