Context: Maternal hypertensive disorders during pregnancy are suggested to affect obesity risk in offspring. However, little is known about the prospective association of rise in maternal blood pressure within normal range during pregnancy with this risk for obesity.
Objective: To clarify the associations of diastolic and systolic blood pressure during pregnancy among normotensive women with the risk for obesity in offspring.
Design: Prospective cohort study.
Setting: Southeast China.
Participants: Up to 2013, a total of 88,406 mother-child pairs with anthropometric measurements of offspring age 4 to 7 years were included in the present analysis.
Main outcome measures: Overweight/obesity risk in offspring.
Results: Among normotensive women, second- and third-trimester diastolic and systolic blood pressures were positively associated with risk for overweight/obesity in offspring: odds ratios per 10-mm Hg higher second- and third-trimester diastolic blood pressure were 1.05 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.01 to 1.09] and 1.05 (95% CI, 1.02 to 1.10), respectively, and for systolic blood pressure were 1.08 (95% CI, 1.05 to 1.11) and 1.06 (95% CI, 1.03 to 1.09). Each 10-mm Hg greater rise in blood pressure between first and third trimesters was associated with a higher risk for offspring overweight/obesity: diastolic, 1.06 (95% CI, 1.01 to 1.10); systolic, 1.05 (95% CI, 1.02 to 1.07). Among all women (combining normotensive and hypertensive women), maternal hypertension in the second and third trimesters was associated with 49% and 14% higher risks for overweight/obesity in offspring, respectively.
Conclusions: These results suggest that rise in maternal blood pressure during pregnancy and hypertension during pregnancy, independent of maternal body size before pregnancy, are risk factors for offspring childhood obesity.