Maternal Inflammatory Biomarkers at 28 Weeks of Pregnancy and Childhood Adiposity at Age 7 and 13 Years in the Seychelles Child Development Study

Introduction: Dysregulated inflammation during pregnancy can result in an adverse intrauterine environment, potentially disrupting fetal growth and development and increasing the risk of childhood obesity. This study aimed to assess the association between maternal inflammation during the second trimester of pregnancy and childhood adiposity at ages 7 and 13 years. Methods: Utilizing the Seychelles Child Development Study Nutrition Cohort 2 (SCDS NC2), we measured maternal inflammatory markers (IL-1β, IL-2, IFN‐γ, TNF‐α, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, IL-6, CRP, MCP-1, sFlt-1, and VEGF-D) at 28 weeks gestation and childhood body mass index (BMI)-for-age z-scores, waist-to-hip circumference ratios, and the odds of overweight and obesity at ages 7 and 13 years. The associations between maternal inflammatory markers and childhood adiposity measures were analyzed using linear regression for BMI-for-age z-scores and waist-to-hip ratios and multinomial logistic regression for weight status. Potential effect modification by child sex was explored using interaction terms. Results: Among the 1,351 mother-child pairs, 57.1% of mothers, 12.3% of children at age 7 years, and 15.0% of children at age 13 years were classified with obesity. Few associations between gestational inflammatory markers and any adiposity outcome were statistically significant, and all beta coefficients were close to the null. Several associations had statistically significant sex interaction terms (p < 0.05), however most of these associations were not statistically significant. Discussion: Overall, there was no evidence of an association between second trimester maternal inflammatory markers and childhood adiposity at age 7 or 13 years in this cohort.