Excess Early Postnatal Weight Gain Leads to Increased Abdominal Fat in Young Children

Table 1

Associations between child and parental characteristics and tertiles of Z-score weight gain for length gain rate in the first 3 postnatal months.

	Tertiles of weight gain rate for length gain rate in the first 3 months after birth
	1st 𝑍-score WLG tertile (mean : −1.1)	2nd 𝑍-score WLG tertile (mean : −0.049)	3rd 𝑍-score WLG tertile (mean : 1.1)
	𝑁=105	𝑁=106	𝑁=105	𝑃 value
Child characteristics
Infancy
Gender (% boys)	53	45	48	0.49^a
Gestational age (days)^#	282 (275–288)	279 (271–286)	281 (274–286)	0.07^c
Birth weight (grams)	3564 ± 46	3430 ± 46	3642 ± 46	0.005^b
Birth length (cm)	50.7±0.22	50.7±0.22	51.9±0.22	<0.001^b
Z-score birth size (SD)	0.18±0.097	−0.14±0.096	−0.044±0.097	0.056^b
Mean weight gain (g/day)	24.6±0.26	28.0±0.26	32.1±0.26	<0.001^b
Mean length gain (mm/day)	1.1±0.005	1.1±0.005	1.1±0.005	0.95^b
Breastfeeding (% ever)	79	79	80	0.98^a
Exclusive breastfeeding (days)^#*	66 (26–127)	72 (28–136)	79 (40–145)	0.26^c
Childhood
Age at 5 years visit (years)^#	5.4 (5.2–5.5)	5.3 (5.2–5.4)	5.3 (5.2–5.4)	0.16^c
Weight (kg)	19.4±0.26	19.8±0.26	21.6±0.26	<0.001^b
Height (cm)	114.2±0.45	114.3±0.45	116.7±0.45	<0.001^b
BMI (kg/m^2)^#	14.8 (14.0–15.4)	14.9 (14.0–16.1)	15.6 (14.8–16.6)	<0.001^c
Waist circumference (mm)^#	52.2 (50.2–53.9)	52.0 (49.9–54.1)	54.0 (51.5–56.3)	<0.001^c
Systolic blood pressure (mmHg)	105 ± 0.75	105 ± 0.76	106 ± 0.76	0.46^b
Diastolic blood pressure (mmHg)	55 ± 0.68	56 ± 0.68	55 ± 0.68	0.60^b
Parental characteristics
Maternal age at childbirth (years)	32.5±0.34	32.4±0.34	32.1±0.34	0.70^b
Maternal BMI (kg/m^2)	25.4±0.44	24.8±0.44	24.9±0.43	0.58^b
Paternal BMI (kg/m^2)	25.6±0.34	25.6±0.32	25.6±0.34	0.99^b
Maternal gestational diabetes (%)	0	0	3	0.11^d
Maternal smoking-prenatal (%)	6	6	1	0.13^a
Parental smoking-postnatal (%)				0.039^a
Neither one of the parents	62	70	79
One parent	31	20	19
Both parents	7	10	2
Socio economic status (% high educated)	79	76	69	0.26^a
Maternal ethnicity (% western)	93	91	92	0.85^a

Values are means with standard errors in case of continuous variables and percentages in case of frequencies. In case of skewed data (#), medians with interquartile range were presented.
#Not normally distributed.
∗Within those ever breastfed.
aChi-square test.
bANOVA.
cKruskall Wallis test.
dFisher’s exact test.