Prepregnancy Body Mass Index and Gestational Weight Gain in Relation to Child Body Mass Index Among Siblings

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that in utero effects of excessive gestational weight gain may result in increased weight in children; however, studies have not controlled for shared genetic or environmental factors between mothers and children. Using 2,758 family groups from the Collaborative Perinatal Project, the authors examined the association of maternal prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) and gestational weight gain on child BMI at age 4 years using both conventional generalized estimating equations and fixed-effects models that account for shared familial factors. With generalized estimating equations, prepregnancy BMI and gestational weight gain had similar associations with the child BMI z score (β = 0.09 units, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.08, 0.11; and β = 0.07 units, 95% CI: 0.04, 0.11, respectively. However, fixed effects resulted in null associations for both prepregnancy BMI (β = 0.03 units, 95% CI: -0.01, 0.07) and gestational weight gain (β = 0.03 units, 95% CI: -0.02, 0.08) with child BMI z score at age 4 years. The positive association between gestational weight gain and child BMI at age 4 years may be explained by shared family characteristics (e.g., genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors) rather than in utero programming. Future studies should continue to evaluate the relative roles of important familial and environmental factors that may influence BMI and obesity in children.

Maternal Working Hours and Early Childhood Overweight in Japan: A Population‐based Study

“…Although we assessed maternal BMI only at the time of study, we should note a possibility that maternal prepregnancy BMI or gestational weight gain could be rather important determinants of early childhood overweight [35][36][37] . To examine the robustness of the present findings, we conducted the analyses without adjusting for maternal BMI, which did not substantially change the results; compared with children of non-working mothers, the ORs among children whose mothers work <8 h/day and ≥8 h/day were 0.26 (95% CI: 0.08, 0.82) and 0.68 (95% CI: 0.20, 2.31), respectively, in model 5.…”

Empowering Pediatricians to Prevent Chronic Disease Across Generations

“…Further, pediatricians see many women who plan to have more children and thus they are in a unique place to inform women of the benefits of reducing the pre-pregnant BMI before conceiving, the role of physical activity in pregnancy on later age at menarche of the daughter, and the detrimental effects of pre-pregnancy overweight and obesity on risk of obesity for the future offspring. 7 In addition to messages about the importance of diet and physical activity, pediatricians already convey cancer prevention messages through regular reminders about the use of sunscreen at annual child visits as well as the harms from smoking. Although it is often challenging to measure the full impact of pediatricians' prevention guidance, the essential role that they play in lifelong cancer prevention cannot be denied when one considers the concrete example of their role in increasing the uptake of the human papillomavirus cancer vaccine.…”

Maternal Gestational and Postdelivery Weight Gain and Child Weight

“…A few studies have used a between-sibling design to unravel intrauterine effects from genetic and lifestyle influences, with conflicting results. [21][22][23] One study reported that the GWG-childhood overweight associations are completely explained by behavioral and environmental factors, 21 and another study concluded that GWG is associated with child's weight, independent of behavioral and environmental factors. 22 Besides differences in age of outcome between the 2 studies, the conclusion may also differ according to maternal prepregnancy BMI: 1 study concluded that most of the GWG-offspring overweight association was explained by lifestyle and genetic factors in normal weight mothers, and there was a contribution of intrauterine programming in overweight mothers.…”