Table 2.

Overview of clinical studies demonstrating an association between maternal obesity and altered behavioural outcomes in children independent of other covariates.

Maternal Risk Factor	Child Outcome (Age at Follow-Up)	Study Design and Sample Size	Covariates Investigated	Author, Year
↑ Pre-pregnancy BMI and/or gestational weight gain	↑ teacher-rated ADHD symptomology (7–8 years or 10–12 years)	Cohort study, N = 12,556	Maternal age, social adversity, maternal smoking, gestation length, birth weight, infant sex, maternal education, family structure	Rodriguez et al., 2008 [35]
	↑ teacher-rated ADHD symptomology (5 years)	Cohort study, N = 1714		Rodriguez, 2010 [36]
Pre-pregnancy obesity	↑ Affective behavioural problems as determined by primary caregiver (5, 8, 10, 14, 17 years)	Longitudinal cohort study, N = 1754	Maternal age, maternal education, household income, maternal smoking, alcohol consumption, family structure, maternal life stress, gestation length, gestational diabetes, duration of breastfeeding, birth weight	Robinson et al., 2012 [37]
↑ Pre-pregnancy BMI	↑ Internalising and externalizing problems in childhood and adolescence (5, 8, 10, 14, 17 years)	Longitudinal cohort study, N = 2868	Maternal psychopathology, paternal psychopathology, maternal age, alcohol intake, smoking, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, maternal life stress, maternal diabetes	Van Lieshout et al., 2013 [38]
Pre-pregnancy obesity	↓Child psychosocial development at age 6↑ likelihood of prior ADD/ADHD diagnosis, speech/language therapy, psychological or special needs services (6 years)	Cohort study, N = 1542	Maternal age, ethnicity, marital status, education, parity, household income, maternal smoking, infant sex, infant current weight, child enrichment activities (e.g., reading to child >3 times per week), breastfeeding duration, postpartum depression, birth weight	Jo et al., 2015 [39]
↑ Pre-pregnancy BMI, pre-pregnancy and gestational diabetes	↑ risk of neurodevelopmental, ADD/ADHD, psychotic, mood, stress-related disorders in offspring (up to 11 years, median 5.5 years)	Population study, N = 649,043	Infant birth year, infant sex, perinatal problems, gestation length, parity, mode of delivery, maternal age, family structure, ethnicity, maternal smoking, maternal inflammatory comorbidities	Kong et al., 2018 [40]
			Infant birth year, infant sex, perinatal problems, gestation length, parity, mode of delivery, maternal age, family structure, ethnicity, maternal smoking, maternal inflammatory comorbidities, maternal psychopathology	Kong et al., 2020 [42]

AD(H)D, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; BMI, body mass index.