Abstract
Maternal obesity in pregnancy predicts offspring psychopathology risk in childhood but it remains unclear whether maternal obesity or underweight associate with adult offspring mental disorders. We examined longitudinally whether maternal body mass index (BMI) in pregnancy predicted mental disorders in her offspring and whether the associations differed by offspring birth year among 68,571 mother–child dyads of Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank, Scotland. The offspring were born 1950–1999. Maternal BMI was measured at a mean 15.7 gestational weeks and classified into underweight, normal weight, overweight, moderate obesity and severe obesity. Mental disorders were identified from nationwide registers carrying diagnoses of all hospitalizations and deaths in Scotland in 1996–2017. We found that maternal BMI in pregnancy was associated with offspring mental disorders in a time-dependent manner: In offspring born 1950–1974, maternal underweight predicted an increased hazard of mental disorders [Hazard Ratio (HR) = 1.74; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.01–3.00)]. In offspring born 1975–1999, maternal severe obesity predicted increased hazards of any mental (HR 1.60; 95% CI 1.08–2.38) substance use (HR 1.91; 95% CI 1.03–3.57) and schizophrenia spectrum (HR 2.80; 95% CI 1.40–5.63) disorders. Our findings of time-specific associations between maternal prenatal BMI and adult offspring mental disorders may carry important public health implications by underlining possible lifelong effects of maternal BMI on offspring psychopathology.
Highlights
Maternal obesity in pregnancy predicts offspring psychopathology risk in childhood but it remains unclear whether maternal obesity or underweight associate with adult offspring mental disorders
Since the participants were born within a narrow range of birth y ears[30,31,32,33], these studies could not test whether the effects of maternal BMI in pregnancy on offspring mental disorders are modified by offspring birth year, even though the rates of underweight, overweight, obesity and severe obesity have changed markedly across time[1]
We examined the associations of maternal BMI in pregnancy and offspring mental disorders severe enough to require hospitalization or contribute to death in adulthood among 68,571 mother–offspring dyads identified from the Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank (AMND) and born 1950–1999
Summary
Maternal obesity in pregnancy predicts offspring psychopathology risk in childhood but it remains unclear whether maternal obesity or underweight associate with adult offspring mental disorders. We examined the associations of maternal BMI in pregnancy and offspring mental disorders severe enough to require hospitalization or contribute to death in adulthood among 68,571 mother–offspring dyads identified from the Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank (AMND) and born 1950–1999 With such a range of birth years, we could examine the consequences of exposure to both maternal underweight and obesity in pregnancy, and test if the effects of maternal BMI on offspring mental disorders were time-dependent and varied by offspring birth year. We tested if any associations were independent of several factors previously associated with maternal BMI and/or offspring mental disorders, including maternal mental disorders, maternal hypertensive pregnancy disorders and many sociodemographic and perinatal factors[13,18,23,24,35,36,37]
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