Preconception Diet Quality Is Associated with Birth Weight for Gestational Age Among Women in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos
A population-based cohort study was conducted on Hispanic/Latino women living within 4 urban communities in the United States of America to quantify risk factors and prevalence rates of disease. From this cohort there was 679 pregnancies that resulted in live births from 550 women. After adjusting for covariates and missing data, 53 women were excluded from the final sample, featuring 497 women and associated live births for statistical analysis.
The 2010 Healthy Eating Index, which measures diet quality, was used to assess compliance with the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, during the preconception period. Participants were grouped according to HEI-2010 score; 18.4 to 50.4 (Group 1), 50.5 to 63.1 (Group 2), 63.2 to 95.9 (Group 3). Interestingly the women in Group 3 were on average older, while both women in Group 2 and 3 had twice the prevalence of Gestational diabetes compared to Group 1 (16.1% and 18.3% vs 8.5% respectively).
Average birth weight outcomes for each group was; 3,268.9g (Group 1) and 3,366.0g (Group 2) and 3427.5g (Group 3). The unadjusted prevalence of Low for Gestational Age was 19.07% (Group 1), 24.98% (Group 2) and 26.22% (Group 3). Further statistical analysis showed that BMI or pregnancy complications in this cohort did not influence the final results. This meant the hypothesis that women with higher BMI (≥ 25) and higher quality diet scores would have lower or more optimal birth weight infants was proved false.
Limitations
- Small sample size
- Self reporting of diet and live birth weight
- Mean lag of 3.2 years between baseline measurement and live birth
Similar studies
Gresham E, et al. (2016). Diet quality before or during pregnancy and the relationship with pregnancy and birth outcomes: the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980016001245
Grieger J A, et al. (2014). Preconception Dietary Patterns in Human Pregnancies Are Associated with Preterm Delivery. https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.114.190686
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