Children of mothers with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, or whose pre-pregnancy BMI is outside the normal weight range are more likely to have psychiatric disorders.
- Children of mothers with a history of eating disorders or whose pre-pregnancy BMI was above normal weight had a higher risk of psychiatric disorders.
- However, effect sizes are generally larger for maternal eating disorders than for BMI.
- These findings suggest that there is a need to consider both of these exposures clinically to help prevent mental illness in children.
We know: maternal nutrition is essential for fetal development. Thus, eating disorders (EDBs) can influence this process and contribute to the development of mental problems in children. In a new study, researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm (Sweden) wanted to examine the link between maternal eating disorders and body mass index (BMI) before pregnancy, on the one hand, and psychiatric diagnoses of children , on the other hand.
Psychiatric disorders: a higher risk in children of mothers with ED
To carry out the work, published in the journal JAMA Network Openthey used Finnish national registers. The team reviewed data from 392,098 mothers. Among them, 6,273 had a history of eating disorders, 23,114 mothers were underweight before pregnancy, and 208,335 mothers were overweight or obese. In total, 649,956 children, born between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2014, were included in the work. They carried out nine neurodevelopmental and psychiatric examinations.
At the end of follow-up until December 31, 2021, 106,777 children had received a neurodevelopmental or psychiatric diagnosis. Even after adjusting for potential factors, maternal eating disorders, being underweight before pregnancy, and being overweight or obese were associated with most mental diagnoses studied in toddlers. “Effect sizes were generally larger for maternal eating disorders than for BMI, but in association with child sleep disorders and disorders of social functioning and tic disorders, while for severe maternal obesity before pregnancy, offspring intellectual disabilities had the largest effect size”we can read in the results.
Deepen knowledge “for the development of relevant management and treatment”
According to the authors, children’s risks of other childhood and early childhood eating disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity and conduct disorders were elevated in association with poor outcomes. at birth. “Deepening knowledge of these associations and the underlying biological mechanisms may provide useful information for the development of relevant management and treatment,” they concluded.
