Nutrients
Maternal Overweight/Obesity and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Status During Pregnancy Are Associated with Offspring Body Composition at 8.5 Years: Findings from the PREOBE Study
By Escudero-Marín M, Azaryah H, De La Garza A and 5 others.
Abstract
Background
Maternal obesity is associated with altered polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) status during pregnancy and may programme offspring adiposity, yet the contribution of specific n-3 and n-6 PUFAs across gestation and in cord blood to childhood body composition remains incompletely understood. We investigated these associations between maternal PUFA status during pregnancy and offspring obesity-related outcomes at 8.5 years.
Methods
Here, we analysed data of 172 mother-child pairs from the PREOBE cohort, grouped by maternal pregestational body mass index (BMI) as normal weight (NW, n = 84), overweight (OW, n = 47), or obese (OB, n = 41). Plasma phospholipid PUFAs were quantified at 24, 34, and 40 weeks of gestation and in cord blood. At 8.5 years, children underwent anthropometry and body-composition assessment by skinfolds and bioelectrical impedance, remaining 104 mother-child pairs with valid data. Associations analyses included ANOVA/ANCOVA adjusted by confounders variables, unadjusted bivariate Spearman rank correlations with Benjamini-Hochberg False Discovery Rate (FDR) correction, and pooled robust linear regression.