B3994 - Effect of Excessive Weight Gain during Pregnancy on Childrens Neurodevelopment - 22/02/2022

B number: 
B3994
Principal applicant name: 
Jan Buitelaar | Radboud University Medical Centre (Netherlands)
Co-applicants: 
Dan Wu
Title of project: 
Effect of Excessive Weight Gain during Pregnancy on Children's Neurodevelopment
Proposal summary: 

Epidemiological studies found that about 10% of children in the world suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Intellectual Disability, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and others. Excessive weight gain during pregnancy appears to be an important factor affecting the health of pregnant women and their offspring. Weight gain during pregnancy changes with gestational age, and the total weight gain during pregnancy may not be able to accurately assess and identify the adverse maternal and infant outcomes. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore the weight changes at different time points during pregnancy. Further, the mechanism mediating the association between weight gain during pregnancy and childrens' neurodevelopmental disorders is still unclear. Epigenetic mechanisms may play an important role. This study will test the hypothesis that excessive weight gain during pregnancy may cause fetal epigenetic changes, affect the growth pattern of offspring, affect the brain development of children, and increase the risk for neurodevelopmental disorders in children.

Impact of research: 
We expect this research to make important contributions to our understanding of the biological, behavioral, and social mechanisms between the pattern of weight gain during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders in children. We hope that this work will arouse the interest of the scientific community and publish several high-impact publications in peer-reviewed journals. We will also work hard to spread our work to practitioners and other stakeholders who work with children and families.
Date proposal received: 
Tuesday, 8 February, 2022
Date proposal approved: 
Monday, 21 February, 2022
Keywords: 
Mental health - Psychology, Psychiatry, Cognition, Mental health, Epigenetic profiling: Pre-processed data from the 450K array for mothers and offspring; plate, array, and slide information of individual array daya; cell type composition as calculated by estimate CellCounts2() function in the ‘minfi’ package; sex of offspring; maternal smoking during pregnancy; maternal age; gestational age; maternal pre-pregnancy BMI; parity; maternal education, Offspring