Maternal Dietary Patterns Are Associated with Pre-Pregnancy Body Mass Index and Gestational Weight Gain: Results from the “Mamma & Bambino” Cohort

Abstract

The present study investigated the association of maternal dietary patterns with pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and total gestational weight gain (GWG), using data of 232 women from the “Mamma & Bambino” cohort. Dietary patterns were derived by a food frequency questionnaire and principal component analysis. Self-reported pre-pregnancy BMI and GWG were calculated according to the World Health Organization and Institute of Medicine guidelines, respectively. The adherence to the “Western” dietary pattern—characterized by high intake of red meat, fries, dipping sauces, salty snacks and alcoholic drinks—was associated with increased GWG (β = 1.217; standard error [SE] = 0.487; p = 0.013), especially among obese women (β = 7.363; SE = 1.808; p = 0.005). In contrast, the adherence to the “prudent” dietary pattern—characterized by high intake of boiled potatoes, cooked vegetables, legumes, pizza and soup—was associated with reduced pre-pregnancy BMI (β = −0.631; SE = 0.318; p-trend = 0.038). Interestingly, the adherence to this pattern was positively associated with GWG among underweight (β = 4.127; SE = 1.722; p = 0.048), and negatively among overweight and obese individuals (β = −4.209; SE = 1.635; p = 0.016 and β = −7.356; SE = 2.304; p = 0.031, respectively). Our findings point out that the promotion of a healthy diet might represent a potential preventive strategy against inadequate weight gain, even during the periconceptional period.

Dietary patterns and their associations with gestational weight gain in the United Arab Emirates: results from the MISC cohort

“…To that end, the findings of this study highlighted a protective effect of adherence to the "Diverse" dietary pattern against insufficient GWG, the latter being associated with preterm delivery and SGA infants [53]. Similar to those findings are those of Maugeri et al from the 'Mamma & Bambino' cohort, who showed that adherence to the "Prudent" dietary pattern, characterized by high intakes of boiled potatoes, cooked vegetables, legumes, pizza, and soup was positively associated with GWG among underweight pregnant women and negatively among overweight and obese individuals [2]. On the other hand, Shin et al, [54] showed that a "Mixed" dietary pattern, characterized by high intakes of meat, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, nuts, and sweets, may be associated with higher odds of insufficient GWG among pregnant women participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2006.…”

“…These findings are in line with previous research examining the effect of dietary patterns on weight gain during pregnancy. For instance, a recent study by Maugeri et al [2] reported a positive association between adherence to a western diet (characterized by high intakes of red meat, fries, dipping sauces, salty snacks and alcoholic drinks) and excessive GWG among women participating in the 'Mamma & Bambino' cohort. Similar associations of the western dietary pattern with excessive GWG were reported among urban Black South African women [17], women participating in the Generation R study in the Netherlands [14], and among Finnish women [44].…”

“…Gestational weight gain (GWG) is one of the factors determined by the mother's nutrition, which is postulated to influence pregnancy outcomes [2]. Evidence has consistently linked inadequate GWG with adverse outcomes for both the baby and the mother.…”

“…Accordingly, the recent couple of decades have witnessed a plethora of studies examining the association of dietary patterns with health and disease. In the context of GWG, a few studies showed that adherence to a dietary pattern rich in fruits and vegetables during pregnancy was negatively associated with excessive GWG [2,16,17]. On the other hand, excessive GWG was found to be more prevalent among women consuming a western type of diet, consisting mostly of meat, fries, salty snack, and dipping sauces [2,17].…”

Different Patterns of the SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic across Italian Regions: a Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components approach

“…To simplify the interpretability of PCs, the varimax rotation (i.e. an orthogonal rotation that minimizes the number of variables that have high loadings on each PC) was applied [19][20][21] . Finally, individual scores were generated for each PC and plotted in a Score plot.…”