STUDY ANALYSIS: Being Overweight While Pregnant Affects Fetal Brain Development

And two hormones that regulate metabolism appear to play a key role

If you thought being fat couldn’t get any worse—guess what? It can. Being fat can always get worse.

A new study shows that women who are overweight while pregnant impede the development of their children’s brains, potentially setting them up for a lifetime of mental-health issues such as ADHD and anxiety.

A relationship between a mother’s weight during pregnancy and the mental health of her children is already quite well established, but this study tells us that it appears to be specific hormones that mediate the relationship, namely adiponectin and leptin.

Mounting evidence indicates an association between increased adiposity during pregnancy and offspring risk for neurodevelopmental and mental health disorders (Cirulli et al., 2020, Edlow, 2016, Rivera et al., 2015) These studies are commonly guided by the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis (Monk et al., 2019, Wadhwa et al., 2009), which suggests that birthing parent metabolic state during pregnancy alters the in-utero environment in ways that may shape the developing brain and confer risk for mental health disorders later in life. While an association between increased adiposity during pregnancy and offspring mental health is increasingly clear, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain poorly understood.

Overweight women have higher levels of leptin and lower levels of adiponectin in their blood. Leptin regulates appetite and adiponectin is involved in glucose regulation and fat metabolism.