The differential effect of maternal dietary patterns on quantiles of Birthweight

Abstract

Background Maternal dietary habits during pregnancy are considered essential for development and growth of the fetus as well as maternal health. It has an effect on the birthweight of infants. However, little is known about the effect of dietary patterns on birthweight in urban South Africa. This study aimed to investigate differential effect of dietary patterns of pregnant women on quantiles of birthweight. Methods Data for the study were obtained from a Mother and Child in the Environment birth cohort study in Durban South Africa. Quantile regression was used to investigate the effect of maternal dietary patterns on quantiles of birthweight. Data collection was conducted during the period of 2013 to 2017 in Durban South Africa. Using factor analysis, eight dietary groups were identified from 687 pregnant women in the cohort. Quantile regression analysis was employed to identify the differential effects of the seven dietary groups and demographic factors on the birthweight. Results The quantile regression estimates at the 50th quantile and the ordinary regression estimates painted the same picture about the conditional mean effect of covariates on the birthweight. But unlike the quantile regression the ordinary regression fails to give insights about the covariates effect disparities at the low and/or upper birthweight quantiles. All the dietary groups show a significant differential effect at different birthweight quantiles. For instance, increased frequency of protein rich foods intake was associated with reduction in birthweight at lower and upper quantiles; increased frequency of junk foods intake has a slight increase in birthweight at the lower quantiles but significantly higher increase at the 95th quantile (p < 0.001); increase in consuming vegetable rich foods, reduced birthweight at 95th quantile (p < 0.001). The results further showed that employment (p = 0.006) and family size (p = 0.002) had differential effects across different birthweight quantiles. Conclusions Both maternal undernutrition and overnutrition of protein rich foods, junk foods, snack and energy foods and vegetable rich foods have shown a substantial varying effects on those infants with birthweights in the lower and upper birthweight quantiles.

Maternal Consumption of Ultra-Processed Foods-Rich Diet and Perinatal Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…After the removal of duplicates, 4.918 article titles and abstracts were screened. Of these, 151 full-text articles were further assessed for eligibility and, finally, 61 studies [ 4 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ,…”

Framework of Methodology to Assess the Link between A Posteriori Dietary Patterns and Nutritional Adequacy: Application to Pregnancy

“…Exploratory factor analysis is a statistical method that allows for deriving empirical dietary patterns and has been extensively employed as a tool for the assessment of maternal diet during pregnancy [ 7 , 23 , 24 , 26 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. This data-driven technique reduces the dimensionality of dietary variables to a few components [ 34 ]; nevertheless, the natural interpretability of the derived factors depends on several subjective and arbitrary decisions.…”

The impact of dietary diversity and seasonality in food availability on the quantile distribution of birth size among pregnant women in rural Malawi – a cross-sectional study

“…Our findings are not easily compared to other studies due to differences in analytical methods. However, a study from South Africa found that dietary patterns affected birth weight in different quantiles using quantile regression [ 6 ]. Based on previous findings from others, our results are somewhat unexpected.…”

“…We have reported that frequency of milk intake was associated with birth weight [ 16 ]. As dietary patterns using factor analysis have shown associations with birth size, this could perhaps be another useful method in this setting [ 6 ]. Thirdly, a minimum consumption amount of a food item was not required for it to be included in the DDS.…”

“…This could thus help identify vulnerable subgroups, which is important when implementing targeted interventions to improve maternal and child interventions. A study from urban South Africa found that dietary patterns had differential effect on quantiles of birth weight [ 6 ], but to our knowledge, the effect of DDS on different quantiles of birth size has not been studied.…”