Background: Gestational weight gain (GWG) and anthropometric trajectories may affect foetal programming and are potentially modifiable.
Objectives: To assess concomitant patterns of change in weight, circumferences and adiposity across gestation as an integrated prenatal exposure, and determine how they relate to neonatal body composition.
Methods: Data are from a prospective cohort of singleton pregnancies (n = 2182) enrolled in United States perinatal centres, 2009-2013. Overall and by prepregnancy BMI group (overweight/obesity and healthy weight), joint latent trajectory models were fit with prenatal weight, mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC), triceps (TSF) and subscapular (SSF) skinfolds. Differences in neonatal body composition by trajectory class were assessed via weighted least squares.
Results: Six trajectory patterns reflecting co-occurring changes in weight and MUAC, SSF and TSF across pregnancy were identified overall and by body mass index (BMI) group. Among people with a healthy weight BMI, some differences were observed for neonatal subcutaneous adipose tissue, and among individuals with overweight/obesity some differences in neonatal lean mass were found. Neonatal adiposity measures were higher among infants born to individuals with prepregnancy overweight/obesity.
Conclusions: Six integrated trajectory patterns of prenatal weight, subcutaneous adipose tissue and circumferences were observed that were minimally associated with neonatal body composition, suggesting a stronger influence of prepregnancy BMI.
Keywords: adiposity; body composition; gestational weight gain; infancy; latent class analysis; pregnancy; trajectory modelling.
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