Associations between maternal stress during pregnancy and offspring obesity risk later in life-A systematic literature review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Associations between maternal stress during pregnancy and offspring obesity risk later in life-A systematic literature review

AU - Lamichhane, Nishan

AU - Olsen, Nanna Julie

AU - Mortensen, Erik Lykke

AU - Obel, Carsten

AU - Heitmann, Berit Lilienthal

AU - Händel, Mina Nicole

PY - 2020/2/1

Y1 - 2020/2/1

N2 - Exposure to prenatal stress is linked to health consequences in the offspring. The objective of this systematic review was to synthesize and critically appraise primary human studies that have examined the association between prenatal exposure to psychosocial stress, or adverse life events, stress hormones, and later risk of developing obesity. We searched Medline, Embase, ScienceDirect, WorldCat, and OpenGrey up to January 2019 to identify relevant literature. We critically appraised the identified studies, assessed their quality, and summarized their findings. From a total of 5930 search results and references of studies that authors considered pertinent, we identified 15 relevant studies among which three were of high quality and the rest were medium-quality studies. We found direct association between exposure to stress in fetal life and different measures of obesity in the offspring in eight studies. The direct association was usually observed in studies that involved measurement of stress among mothers exposed to natural disasters. Due to lack of adequate and comparable data from the included studies, we did not conduct a meta-analysis. We concluded that there may be direct association between prenatal stress and later obesity, but further research with more comparable sources of stressors is recommended.

AB - Exposure to prenatal stress is linked to health consequences in the offspring. The objective of this systematic review was to synthesize and critically appraise primary human studies that have examined the association between prenatal exposure to psychosocial stress, or adverse life events, stress hormones, and later risk of developing obesity. We searched Medline, Embase, ScienceDirect, WorldCat, and OpenGrey up to January 2019 to identify relevant literature. We critically appraised the identified studies, assessed their quality, and summarized their findings. From a total of 5930 search results and references of studies that authors considered pertinent, we identified 15 relevant studies among which three were of high quality and the rest were medium-quality studies. We found direct association between exposure to stress in fetal life and different measures of obesity in the offspring in eight studies. The direct association was usually observed in studies that involved measurement of stress among mothers exposed to natural disasters. Due to lack of adequate and comparable data from the included studies, we did not conduct a meta-analysis. We concluded that there may be direct association between prenatal stress and later obesity, but further research with more comparable sources of stressors is recommended.

KW - BMI

KW - life events

KW - obesity

KW - prenatal stress

U2 - 10.1111/obr.12951

DO - 10.1111/obr.12951

M3 - Review

C2 - 31642601

SN - 1467-7881

JO - Obesity Reviews

JF - Obesity Reviews

ER -