The objectives of the study were to investigate whether the health conditions of mothers with short stature differed from those with normal stature, and to establish if these aspects were associated with the health of the offspring. Data relating to health and socio-economic, demographic and anthropometric conditions were collected from a probabilistic sample population consisting of 1180 mothers and 1511 children ( < 10 years) living in the semi-arid region of the State of Alagoas, Brazil. Mothers were categorised according to stature, with those in the 1st quartile being defined as of short stature and those in the 4th quartile being defined as of normal stature and serving as a reference for the comparison of variables of interest. Following verification that maternal stature fulfilled parametric assumptions, its associations with the other variables were determined by calculating Pearson correlation coefficients. After excluding strongly self-correlated variables (r >or= 0.70), the remaining variables were analysed by multiple linear regression. The results showed that low maternal stature was independently associated with obesity (percentage body fat >or= 30; P = 0.045), abdominal adiposity (waist:hip ratio >or= 0.85; P = 0.007) and high systolic blood pressure ( >or= 140 mmHg; P = 0.006). Short maternal stature was associated with low birth weight ( < 3000 g; P = 0.01) and stunting (height-for-age Z score < - 2; P = 0.019) in the offspring. Thus, in the semi-arid region of Alagoas, women of short stature presented a higher prevalence of chronic degenerative diseases and produced less healthy children than women of normal stature.