Maternal Pre-Pregnancy Body Mass Index, Gestational Weight Gain and Children's Cognitive Development: A Birth Cohort Study

To investigate the joint effect of maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and gestational weight gain (GWG) on children's cognitive development. We recruited 1685 mother-child pairs from the Ma'anshan Birth Cohort in China. Pre-pregnancy BMI and GWG were calculated based on the height and weights measured at multiple antenatal checkups. Children's cognition was assessed by Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition. Poisson regression model was used to analyze the association between maternal pre-pregnancy BMI and children's cognitive dimensions under different GWG categories. Women with overweight or obese before pregnancy were more likely to obtain excessive GWG. When women had excessive GWG, pre-pregnancy overweight was associated with low children's PSI (OR = 1.69, 95%CI: 1.02-2.81) and pre-pregnancy obesity was related to poor VCI in children (OR = 3.71, 95%CI: 1.49-9.22), after adjusting for potential confounders. In pre-pregnancy underweight mothers, adequate GWG reduced the risk of below-average VSI in children (OR = 0.22, 95%CI: 0.05-0.92), but excessive GWG was related to low FSIQ in children (OR = 2.53, 95%CI: 1.34-4.76). In women with excessive GWG, maternal pre-pregnancy BMI displays an inverted U-shape association with children's cognition. Moreover, adequate GWG in women with pre-pregnancy underweight was beneficial for children's cognition.

Automated summary

Maternal pre-pregnancy overweight and excessive gestational weight gain are associated with decreased cognitive development in children, particularly in terms of intelligence and verbal comprehension. Adequate gestational weight gain in mothers with pre-pregnancy underweight is beneficial for children's cognition, while excessive weight gain is linked to a decrease in children's full-scale intelligence quotient.