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Maternal obesity, gestational weight gain and childhood cardiac outcome at age 6 years

International Journal of Obesity volume 41, page 95 (2017)Cite this article

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Toemen et al.1 conducted a prospective study among 4852 parents and their children at age 6 years, and clarified that maternal prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) and weight gain in early pregnancy are both associated with offspring cardiac structure in childhood. In addition, the association was fully explained by childhood BMI. I have some concerns on their study.

First, Gaillard et al.2 reported that there was a significant association between maternal prepregnancy BMI, mothers’ early-pregnancy weight gain rate and adolescent cardio-metabolic risk. I suppose that the target population is overlapping with the data by Toemen et al. and these study outcomes presents that cardio-metabolic risk in children at age 6 years and adolescent were closely associated with maternal prepregnancy BMI and mothers’ weight gain in early-pregnancy period. Does this mean that there is no change of cardio-metabolic risk from 6 years to adolescent?

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References

  1. Toemen L, Gishti O, van Osch-Gevers L, Steegers EA, Helbing WA, Felix JF et al. Maternal obesity, gestational weight gain and childhood cardiac outcomes: role of childhood body mass index. Int J Obes 2016; 40: 1070–1078.

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  2. Gaillard R, Welten M, Oddy WH, Beilin LJ, Mori TA, Jaddoe VW et al. Associations of maternal prepregnancy body mass index and gestational weight gain with cardio-metabolic risk factors in adolescent offspring: a prospective cohort study. BJOG 2016; 123: 207–216.

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  4. Headen I, Mujahid MS, Cohen AK, Rehkopf DH, Abrams B . Racial/ethnic disparities in inadequate gestational weight gain differ by pre-pregnancy weight. Matern Child Health J 2015; 19: 1672–1686.

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  5. Yin J, Quinn S, Dwyer T, Ponsonby AL, Jones G . Maternal diet, breastfeeding and adolescent body composition: a 16-year prospective study. Eur J Clin Nutr 2012; 66: 1329–1334.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hygiene and Public Health, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan

    T Kawada

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  1. T Kawada
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Correspondence to T Kawada.

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Letter to the Editor regarding ‘Maternal obesity, gestational weight gain and childhood cardiac outcomes: role of childhood body mass’ by Toeman et al.

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Kawada, T. Maternal obesity, gestational weight gain and childhood cardiac outcome at age 6 years. Int J Obes 41, 95 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2016.181

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