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Maternal smoking, prepregnancy overweight may increase obesity risk in children
Specific early-life risk factors may, in part, account for social inequalities found in childhood overweight, according to study findings published in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Policies to help mothers maintain a healthy lifestyle are important for improving maternal and child health outcomes, researchers wrote.
David Taylor-Robinson, PhD, FFPH, MRCPCH, MPH, of the department of public health and policy at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, and colleagues evaluated data from the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study on 11,764 children aged 11 years to determine whether early-life risk factors attenuate links between socioeconomic status and overweight.
Researchers examined early-life risk factors linked to childhood overweight, including maternal prepregnancy overweight, maternal smoking during pregnancy, birth weight, preterm birth, caesarean section, breast-feeding duration, early introduction to solid foods and parity. Maternal education level was used as a measure of socioeconomic status.
Overall, 28.84% of children were overweight at 11 years.
An increased RR for childhood overweight was linked to lower maternal academic qualifications, female sex, mixed and Pakistani and Bangladeshi and black ethnicity, maternal age 35 years and older at delivery, maternal prepregnancy overweight, maternal smoking during pregnancy, more than one child in the household, elevated birth weight, caesarean section, breast-feeding for less than 4 months and introducing solid foods before 4 months.
Compared with children whose mothers had higher educational achievement, those whose mothers had no academic degrees were more likely to be overweight (RR = 1.72; 95% CI, 1.48-2.01); the RR was reduced to 1.44 (95% CI, 1.23-2.69) after controlling for prenatal, perinatal and early-life characteristics, including maternal prepregnancy overweight and maternal smoking during pregnancy.
“Policies to support mothers to maintain a healthy weight, breast-feed and abstain from smoking during pregnancy are important to improve maternal and child health outcomes, and our study provides some evidence that they may also help to address the continuing rise in inequalities to childhood overweight,” the researchers wrote. “Policies should focus on supporting access to healthy diets, particularly in the preconception and antenatal periods, and making healthy eating affordable for disadvantaged families. Future research aimed at reducing childhood obesity should also assess the inequalities impact of interventions in order to build the evidence base to reduce the large social inequalities found in overweight/obesity in childhood.” – by Amber Cox
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.