The Research

The link between a mother's body mass index (BMI) before pregnancy and the metabolic traits of her children is likely mediated by shared genetics and familial lifestyle rather than effects on the fetus during gestation, according to study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Debbie Lawlor of the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues. 20 to 50 percent of women in Western populations now start pregnancy overweight or obese, and researchers have hypothesized that this may lead to metabolic disruptions in offspring. Lawlor's group used data on 5,337 mother-father-offspring trios collected in three European birth cohorts. Each dataset included maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, paternal BMI, offspring BMI, and information on 153 metabolic traits in the offspring, based on a blood sample taken at age 16, 17, or 31. The researchers found associations between parental BMIs and offspring metabolic traits including VLDL-lipoproteins, VLDL-C, VLDL-triglycerides, VLDL-diameter, glyc...

There is little evidence to support any long-term impact of maternal body mass index (BMI) in pregnancy on a child's risk of fatness in childhood and adolescence, according to a new study published in PLOS Medicine by Rebecca Richmond of the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues. Research has shown that a mother's BMI during pregnancy is associated with greater birth size of her offspring. However, whether this association continues through childhood and is mediated by processes that occur during gestation—such as effects of circulating glucose and lipids levels—had been unclear. In the new study, the researchers used body mass and genetic information on 6,057 mother-offspring pairs from two prospective birth cohort studies. In one cohort, the offspring's BMI was measured around age 6; in the other it was taken multiple times between ages 7 and 18. While the researchers found associations between maternal BMI before pregnancy and offspring BMI at all ages,...