Maternal obesity and child development

The prevalence of obesity among women of childbearing age is considerable: For example, the prevalence is between 7-25% in European countries and about 20% in the United States. This high prevalence is worrisome, because obesity not only increases disease risk among the women themselves, but potentially also among their children. In this thesis, we explored the effects of obesity before and during pregnancy on children’s neurodevelopment. Compared to children born to mothers who had a normal weight, the odds of having any behavioral problem was 50 to 80% higher among children of mothers who had preconception obesity. Preconception obesity was also associated with slightly poorer executive functioning in the children. Based on our systematic reviews and meta-analyses of animal experiments, we suggest that obesity before and during pregnancy is causal to the poorer neurodevelopment (as well as poorer physical health) of the offspring. We were not able to detect effects of maternal lifestyle interventions aimed at weight loss before and/or during pregnancy in women with obesity on children’s neurodevelopment, although a preconception lifestyle intervention may have led to improved emotion regulation of the children. Potentially, future lifestyle interventions before and/or during pregnancy aimed at weight loss that additionally target maternal mental health are better in improving children’s neurodevelopment than interventions that are solely focused on reducing maternal weight.