The Relationship between Maternal Pre-Pregnancy BMI and Preschool Obesity The increasing prevalence of obesity during pregnancy raises concerns over the intergenerational transmission of obesity and its potential to exacerbate the current obesity epidemic. The fetal origins hypothesis posits that the intrauterine environment might have lasting effects on children’s outcomes. A large literature ...

BACKGROUND Maternal obesity is accompanied by maternal and fetal complications during and after pregnancy. The risks seem to increase with degree of obesity. Leptin has been suggested to play a role in the development of obesity related complications. Whether maternal leptin levels differ between obese and morbidly obese women, during and after pregnancy, have to our knowledge not been previous...

Obesity and pregnancy both place the liver under metabolic stress, but interactions between obstetric obesity and bilirubin metabolism have not been studied. We determined associations between obesity, maternal/neonatal bilirubin levels, and uridine 5'diphosphate-glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 (UGT1A1) enzyme that eliminates bilirubin. Adult livers were analyzed for UGT1A1 expression, activity, an...

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS Developmental programming induced by maternal obesity influences the development of chronic disease in offspring. In the present study, we aimed to determine whether maternal obesity exaggerates obesity-related kidney disease. METHODS Female C57BL/6 mice were fed high-fat diet (HFD) for six weeks prior to mating, during gestation and lactation. Male offspring were weaned to no...

BACKGROUND Evidence suggests that in utero exposure to undernutrition and overnutrition might affect adiposity in later life. Epigenetic modification is suggested as a plausible mediating mechanism. METHODS We used multivariable linear regression and a negative control design to examine offspring epigenome-wide DNA methylation in relation to maternal and offspring adiposity in 1018 participan...

A recent cohort study suggested that maternal smoking during pregnancy might be a risk factor for childhood obesity. Data from the obligatory school entry health examination in six Bavarian (Germany) public health offices in 1999-2000 were used to assess the relation between maternal smoking during pregnancy and childhood obesity (n = 6,483 German children aged 5.00-6.99 years). A body mass ind...

The obesity epidemic is a problem of global importance with a profound impact on maternal-fetal health. Maternal overweight and obesity causes pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes, hypertension and preeclampsia and affects fetal growth. Maternal obesity offers an altered genetic, hormonal and biochemical environment for the developing fetus/embryo and influences fetal growth and...

Maternal obesity has long-term consequences for the development of hypothalamic neurones involved in energy homeostasis and the metabolic profile in offspring. In the present study, we compared the effects of maternal obesity induced by longstanding high-fat diet (HFD) with milder postnatal overfeeding during suckling induced by litter size reduction. Female Sprague-Dawley rats consumed chow (C...

BACKGROUND Maternal pre-pregnancy obesity may be associated with impaired infant neuropsychological development; however, there are few studies and it is unclear if reported associations are due to intrauterine mechanisms. METHODS We assessed whether maternal pre-pregnancy overweight and obesity were associated with cognitive and psychomotor development scores (mean 100 ± 15) of children aged...

BACKGROUND Obesity and diabetes are highly prevalent among pregnant women in the United States. No study has examined the independent and combined effects of maternal prepregnancy obesity and maternal diabetes on the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in parallel with other developmental disorders (DDs). METHODS This study is based on 2734 children (including 102 ASD cases), a subset of t...