Maternal Behaviors during Pregnancy Impact Offspring Obesity Risk
Table 1
Characteristics of study participants and offspring.
Overweight/obese
Normal weight
P value
Age, years
28.8 ± 5.1
28.2 5.5
0.30
% primiparous
66.7%
85.5
0.0001
% non-Hispanic White
62.7%
71.5
0.09
% married
68.9%
68.3
0.91
% >high school education
84.7%
86.6
0.67
% income <$25,000/year
23.7
19.0
0.27
% community clinic
28.4%
25.1
0.54
Prepregnancy BMI, kg/m2
30.5 ± 5.3
22.3 ± 1.8
.0001
% gain above 1990 IOM
63.8%
46.2
0.001
Infant at birth
Weeks of gestation at birth
38.6 ± 2.5
38.7 1.9
0.14
% male
50.9%
52.4
0.83
WFA birth
0.42 ± 0.92
0.21 ± 0.76
0.02
% macrosomic (>4000 grams) at birth
17.2%
4.8
0.0001
% >90th percentile at birth
19.6%
7.1
0.001
% <10th percentile at birth
3.6%
2.2
0.53
Infant at 6 months
WFA 6 mo
0.38 ± 1.1
0.34 ± 1.0
0.74
% >90th percentile at 6 months
17.6%
36.8
0.14
% <10th percentile at 6 months
7.6%
2.4
0.14
% mostly breastfeeding over first 6 months
28.2%
36.8
0.47
IOM: 1990 Institute of Medicine Guidelines; WFA birth: weight for gestational age z-scores with Oken et al. [20] reference data; WFA 6 mo: weight for age, sex-specific z-scores with 2000 Centers for Disease Control reference data.