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. 2019 Jun 12;9(6):e023852.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023852.

Maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring body composition in adulthood: Results from two birth cohort studies

Elma Izze da Silva Magalhães  1 , Natália Peixoto Lima  1 , Ana Maria Baptista Menezes  1 , Helen Gonçalves  1 , Fernando C Wehrmeister  1 , MariaCecília Formoso Assunção  1 , Bernardo Lessa Horta  1
Affiliations

Maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring body composition in adulthood: Results from two birth cohort studies

Elma Izze da Silva Magalhães et al. BMJ Open. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the association of maternal smoking during pregnancy with offspring body composition in adulthood and explore the causality of this association.

Design: Birth cohort.

Setting: Population-based study in Pelotas, Brazil.

Participants: All newborn infants in the city's hospitals were enrolled in 1982 and 1993. At a mean age of 30.2 and 22.6 years, the 1982 and 1993 cohorts, respectively, followed the subjects and 7222 subjects were evaluated.

Primary outcome measures: Body mass index (BMI), fat mass index, android to gynoid fat ratio, waist circumference, waist to height ratio, lean mass index and height.

Results: Prevalence of maternal smoking during pregnancy was 35.1% and 32.6%, in 1982 and 1993 cohorts, respectively. Offspring of smoking mothers showed higher mean BMI (β: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.55 to 1.12 kg/m2), fat mass index (β: 0.44; 95% CI: 0.23 to 0.64 kg/m2), android to gynoid fat ratio (β: 0.016; 95% CI: 0.010 to 0.023), waist circumference (β: 1.74; 95% CI: 1.15 to 2.33 cm), waist to height ratio (β: 0.013; 95% CI: 0.010 to 0.017) and lean mass index (β: 0.33; 95% CI: 0.24 to 0.42 kg/m2), whereas height was lower (β: -0.95; -1.26 to -0.65). Weight gain in the first 2 years captured most of the association of maternal smoking with BMI (96.2%), waist circumference (86.1%) and fat mass index (71.7%).

Conclusions: Maternal smoking in pregnancy was associated with offspring body composition measures in adulthood.

Keywords: body composition; cohort study; maternal smoking; pregnancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

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