Maternal Obesity, Gestational Diabetes Mellitus and Offspring's Body Mass Index Trajectories From Birth to Age 6 Years: Glucose in Relation to Women and Babies' Health (GrownB) Study.

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether offspring born to mothers with overweight/obesity, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) or both exhibit different body mass index (BMI) trajectories from birth to 6 years old.

DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING

The Glucose in Relation to Women and Babies' Health (GrownB) Study at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center.

POPULATION OR SAMPLE: Twenty thousand four hundred fifty six mother-offspring pairs.

METHODS

Mothers were classified as normal-weight & non-GDM (NWN), normal-weight & GDM (NWG), overweight/obesity & non-GDM (OWN) or overweight/obesity & GDM (OWG). Offspring BMI trajectories were estimated using linear mixed-effects models in two age periods (0-24 months and 2-6 years), adjusting for confounding.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We extracted offspring's birth weight, recumbent length (age < 2 years) or standing height (age ≥ 2 years), and weight data from routine clinical encounters and physical examinations from the UCLA electronic health records.

RESULTS

Offspring of mothers with overweight/obesity had higher BMI trajectories than those of normal-weight mothers across both 0-24 months (BMI mean differences overall 0-24 months: 0.28 [0.17, 0.39] kg/m2 for OWN vs. NWN; 0.53 [0.21, 0.85] kg/m2 for OWG vs. NWG) and 2-6 years (0.58 [0.45, 0.70] kg/m2 for OWN vs. NWN; 0.53 [0.20, 0.87] kg/m2 for OWG vs. NWG). No significant differences were observed by GDM status (i.e., NWG vs. NWN; OWG vs. OWN, all p > 0.21).

CONCLUSIONS

Maternal pre-pregnancy overweight/obesity was associated with higher offspring BMI trajectories from birth to age of 6 years, while the association was not observed for GDM.