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  • Original Article
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Does vaginal delivery mitigate or strengthen the intergenerational association of overweight and obesity? Findings from the Boston Birth Cohort

International Journal of Obesity volume 41, pages 497–501 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

The intergenerational association of obesity may be driven by mother-to-newborn transmission of microbiota at birth. Yet cesarean delivery circumvents newborn acquisition of vaginal microbiota, and has been associated with greater childhood adiposity. Here we examined the independent and joint associations of maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI; kg m−2) and delivery mode with childhood overweight or obesity.

Subjects/Methods:

We prospectively followed 1441 racially and ethnically diverse mother–child dyads in the Boston Birth Cohort until age 5 years (range: 2.0–8.0 years). We used logistic regression to examine the independent and joint associations of delivery mode (cesarean and vaginal delivery) and pre-pregnancy BMI with childhood overweight or obesity (age–sex-specific BMI ⩾85th percentile).

Results:

Of 1441 mothers, 961 delivered vaginally and 480 by cesarean. Compared with vaginally delivered children, cesarean delivered children had 1.4 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1–1.8) times greater odds of becoming overweight or obese in childhood, after adjustment for maternal age at delivery, race/ethnicity, education, air pollution exposure, pre-pregnancy BMI, pregnancy weight gain and birth weight. Compared with children born vaginally to normal weight mothers, after multivariable adjustment, odds of childhood overweight or obesity were highest in children born by cesarean delivery to obese mothers (odds ratio (OR): 2.8; 95% CI: 1.9–4.1), followed by children born by cesarean delivery to overweight mothers (OR: 2.2; 95% CI: 1.5–3.2), then children born vaginally to obese mothers (OR: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.3–2.6) and finally children born vaginally to overweight mothers (OR: 1.7; 95% CI: 1.2–2.3).

Conclusions:

In our racially and ethnically diverse cohort, cesarean delivery and pre-pregnancy overweight and obesity were associated with childhood overweight or obesity. Needed now are prospective studies that integrate measures of the maternal and infant microbiome, and other potentially explanatory covariates, to elucidate the mechanisms driving this association and to explore whether exposure to vaginal microbiota in cesarean delivered newborns may be an innovative strategy to combat the intergenerational cycle of obesity.

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Acknowledgements

The Boston Birth Cohort (the parent study) is supported in part by the March of Dimes PERI grants (20-FY02-56 and 21-FY07-605), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants (R21ES011666, R21HD066471 and R01HD041702). The follow-up study is supported in part by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau grant (R40MC27443) and the NIH grants (U01AI090727, R21AI079872, 2R01HD041702 and R01HD086013).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    N T Mueller, W L Bennet & L J Appel

  2. Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    N T Mueller, W L Bennet & L J Appel

  3. Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research, The Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China

    G Mao

  4. Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Environmental Science and Public Health, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China

    G Mao

  5. Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Center on the Early Life Origins of Disease, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    G Mao & X Wang

  6. Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    W L Bennet & L J Appel

  7. Inova Translational Medicine Institute, Fairfax, VA, USA

    S K Hourigan

  8. Inova Children’s Hospital, Fairfax, VA, USA

    S K Hourigan

  9. Pediatric Specialists of Virginia, Fairfax, VA, USA

    S K Hourigan

  10. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    S K Hourigan

  11. Human Microbiome Program, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    M G Dominguez-Bello

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  1. N T Mueller
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  2. G Mao
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  6. L J Appel
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  7. X Wang
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Correspondence to N T Mueller.

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Supplementary Information accompanies this paper on International Journal of Obesity website

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Mueller, N., Mao, G., Bennet, W. et al. Does vaginal delivery mitigate or strengthen the intergenerational association of overweight and obesity? Findings from the Boston Birth Cohort. Int J Obes 41, 497–501 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2016.219

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2016.219

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