Obesity in mothers and metabolic disorders in both mothers and children: Possible influences

Abstract

Aim: To study the relationship between obesity of the mother, the body weight of the newborn and the formation of metabolic disturbances in subsequent periods of life. Materials and methods: A prospective study was conducted in which 1,000 women of reproductive age and their newborns were included by the random number method. The mean age is 29.5 [25.0; 33.5] years. The examination included the collection of anamnesis, measurement of body height and body weight, blood pressure, waist circumference and body mass index determination. Micro- and macrosomia in term infants was diagnosed with a birth weight less than 15 and more than 97 percentiles (WHO, 2005). The laboratory study included the determination of glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, high and low density lipoproteins, insulin and C-peptides of basal and stimulated levels, leptin, adiponectin, determination of insulin resistance indices (HOMA-IR) and pancreatic β-cell function (HOMA-β). The statistical analysis of the material was carried out using the Statistica 10 software package, SPSS 13.0. Statistically significant differences were taken into account at a level of p < 0.05. Results. It was found that when pregnancy occurs, 41.0% of women are overweight or obese. In the study, the pathological mass of the body in the neonatal period was detected in every fourth newborn (24.8%), including microsomia (11.3%) and macrosomia (13.5%). As a result, differences in the body weight of new-borns were found, depending on the maternal pregestational BMI. For example, women with obesity of the first degree were more likely to have children with macrosomia in 33.3% of cases than women with normal body weight, whose incidence of children with macrosomia was detected in 12.0% of cases (OR 6.8; 95% CI 2.66-17.56; p < 0.001). In women in the reproductive period, macrosomia at birth was more characteristic for people with a metabolic syndrome, and was associated with hormone-metabolic changes. Conclusion. The results demonstrate the effect of pre-gestational body weight in women with obesity on the body weight of offspring at birth. Both macrosomia and microsomia at birth can be risk factors for the development of the metabolic syndrome in the long term, which confirms the importance of preventing overweight and obesity in women of childbearing age in the pre-gestational period.