Surprisingly, despite measurements occurring in early pregnancy, there was a significant positive relationship between maternal WHR and gestational age (r = 0.11, p < 0.05), but no relationship between other measures of maternal adiposity and gestational age.
These associations persisted after additional adjustment for maternal adiposity and glucose concentrations during pregnancy (data not shown).
The magnitude of the associations between maternal-offspring adiposity and paternal-offspring adiposity were similar and we found no evidence for gender assortment, suggesting that genetic and/or shared familial environment explain this family clustering.
Although previous studies report a positive relationship between leptin concentration and maternal adiposity (17), in our study, no significant associations were noted for leptin at 4 months.
Upon subgroup analysis, the relationship between plasma cortisol and maternal adiposity was only present in the non-depressed pregnant black women (weight r = −0.31, p < 0.005; BMI r = −0.29, p < 0.01, fat mass r = −0.29, p < 0.01, and percent body fat r = −0.26, p < 0.01), but not present in the depressed pregnant black women.
We further investigated the relationship and interaction of maternal adiposity to plasma cortisol and depression.
In our study, we found strong negative correlations between maternal midpregnancy BMI and adiposity and infant IL-6 measured at approximately 4 months of age.
Most previous studies assessed the associations between maternal smoking and adiposity at older age.
Both hyperglycemia and maternal adiposity increase the risk of LGA.
BMI reflects maternal body size, such as muscle mass, skeletal size and body-build in general, and not merely maternal adiposity.
