Researcher highlights how to optimize maternal health during preconception for healthy child development
Kate Braddon, a recent graduate of the U of T MSc in Nutritional Sciences and former Leong Scholar at the SickKids Research Institute under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Birken, provides an update on her project titled: “The Association Between Maternal Preconception BMI and Early Childhood Nutrition”.
The project utilized data from the TARGet Kids! Cohort to evaluate the relationship between maternal preconception health and child nutrition. This cohort is a primary care practice-based research network in Canada, which recruits children from primary care clinics across the Greater Toronto Area, Kingston, and Montreal. Further, TARGet Kids! is one of the largest cohorts in Canada, with over 11,000 participants and has many ways for parents and families to become involved with its work, including its Parent and Clinician Team (PACT). The PACT involves families throughout the entire research process, so our work is constantly guided by their input and experiences in all decision-making processes.
This project was then divided into two main studies. The first study aimed to investigate the association between maternal preconception BMI and child nutrition risk. The study titled “Maternal Preconception Body Mass Index and Early Childhood Nutritional Risk” found that higher maternal preconception BMI was associated with higher nutritional risk (see Braddon et al., 2023). This work provided evidence that the preconception period was an important time for interventions for improving childhood nutrition. This formed a point of further investigation in our project.
The second study was built on the literature and aimed to determine whether the duration of breastfeeding mediated the association between maternal preconception BMI and child nutritional risk. Our results indicated that the total breastfeeding duration did mediate part of this association. This work also indicated that interventions to support breastfeeding in women with higher maternal preconception BMI should be evaluated for their effect in reducing nutritional risk in young children. The publication of this second study is underway.
The findings from these two studies highlight that the health trajectory for child nutrition begins before pregnancy. Future research should also explore these relationships in other families with different financial constraints, in addition to also looking at other maternal health factors during preconception, including maternal dietary intake. These may be other important targets to explore for interventions to address early child nutritional risk. Additionally, this research could extend to the role of paternal health and lifestyle during preconception, and how it relates to outcomes in child nutritional intake and behaviours.
Currently there is work being done to further build on our project and understand more about the preconception period. For instance, Dr. Catherine Birken is a Co-PI on HELTI Canada, a Canadian-wide randomized control trial. Her work on this project aims to understand how health of parents beginning during preconception impacts future child health. Additionally, TARGet Kids! is launching a trial titled: “Preconception Risk Factors and Cardiometabolic Health in Early Childhood (PRECEDE)”, where maternal and paternal risk factors will be collected prior to pregnancy and evaluated on their impact on child health and development.
Being a Leong Scholar during my Master’s study has provided me with the support and community of like-minded researchers to further enhance my skillset and potential. I hope our study findings will inspire others to research more on the effects that the preconception period can have on child development. Additionally, I hope it leads to more emphasis on the importance of pregnancy planning with specific revised preconception recommendations for the Canadian population.