Inadequate sleep and poor eating behaviours are associated with higher risk of childhood overweight and obesity. Less is known about the influence sleep has on eating behaviours and consequently body ...composition. Furthermore, whether associations differ in boys and girls has not been investigated extensively. We investigate associations between sleep, eating behaviours and body composition in cross-sectional analysis of 5-year-old children. Weight, height, BMI, mid upper arm circumference (MUAC), abdominal circumference (AC) and skinfold measurements were obtained. Maternal reported information on child's eating behaviour and sleep habits were collected using validated questionnaires. Multiple linear regression examined associations between sleep, eating behaviours and body composition. Sleep duration was negatively associated with BMI, with 1-h greater sleep duration associated with 0·24 kg/m
(
= 0·24, CI -0·42, -0·03,
= 0·026) lower BMI and 0·21 cm lower (
= -0·21, CI -0·41, -0·02,
= 0·035) MUAC. When stratified by sex, girls showed stronger inverse associations between sleep duration (h) and BMI (kg/m
) (
= -0·32; CI -0·60, -0·04,
= 0·024), MUAC (cm) (
= -0·29; CI -0·58, 0·000,
= 0·05) and AC (cm) (
= -1·10; CI -1·85, -0·21,
= 0·014) than boys. Positive associations for 'Enjoys Food' and 'Food Responsiveness' with BMI, MUAC and AC were observed in girls only. Inverse associations between sleep duration and 'Emotional Undereating' and 'Food Fussiness' were observed in both sexes, although stronger in boys. Sleep duration did not mediate the relationship between eating behaviours and BMI. Further exploration is required to understand how sleep impacts eating behaviours and consequently body composition and how sex influences this relationship.
Specific pregnancy complications, socioeconomic position and sex have all been independently associated with child mental health outcomes, but their combined effects remain unclear. We examined ...whether total number of complications experienced in the pregnancy associated with mental health at 5 and 9-years, and whether this varied by sex or adverse social circumstances. Pregnancy complications were self-reported at 9-months post-natally from a list of 16 complications. Parents completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) when their child was 5 and 9-years. The primary outcome was the SDQ-total and scoring in the clinical range (> 16) was a secondary outcome. We applied generalized linear mixed models to a large nationally representative Irish cohort (GUI; n = 11,134). Analyses were adjusted for sex, adverse social circumstances (at 9-months), and gestational smoking. We included an interaction term between pregnancy complications and each variable respectively in separate models to examine if associations varied by sex or adverse circumstances.After controlling for covariates, total complications associated with mental health at 5 and 9-years. Each additional pregnancy complication conferred a 10% higher total-SDQ score (exponentiated co-efficient 1.10 95%CI 1.06-1.14, 1.20 1.15-1.26, 1.20 1.12-1.29 and 1.34 1.21-1.48 for 1, 2, 3 and 4 + complications respectively). For the dichotomised outcome, generally increasing odds for clinical levels of mental health difficulties were observed (OR 1complication = 1.89, 95%CI 1.37-2.59; OR 2complications = 2.31, 95%CI 1.53-3.50; OR 3complications = 1.77, 95%CI 0.89-3.52; OR 4 + complications = 6.88, 95%CI 3.29-14.40). Females had significantly lower odds of exhibiting clinically significant mental health difficulties than males (OR = 0.43, 95%CI0.32-0.57).There was no evidence that the association between pregnancy complications and child's mental health varied by sex or social circumstances at 5 or 9-years. Males exposed to numerous pregnancy complications in the context of adverse social circumstances had the highest predicted probability of having mental health difficulties in middle childhood.
To describe response rates and characteristics associated with response to the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System study in Ireland (PRAMS Ireland). Using hospital discharge records of live ...births at a large, urban, obstetric hospital, a sampling frame of approximately 2,400 mother-infant pairs were used to alternately sample 1,200 women. Mothers’ information including name, address, parity, age and infant characteristics such as sex and gestational age at delivery were extracted from records. Modes of contact included an invitation letter with option to opt out of the study, three mail surveys, a reminder letter and text message reminder for remaining non-respondents. Sixty-one per cent of women responded to the PRAMS Ireland survey over a 133 day response period. Women aged <30, single women, multiparous women and women with a preterm delivery were less likely to respond. Women participating in PRAMS Ireland were similar to the national birth profile in 2011 which had a mean age of 32, were 40 % primiparous, 33 % single or never married and had a 28 % caesarean section rate. Survey and protocol changes are required to increase response rates above recommended Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) thresholds of 65 % within the recommended 90 day data collection cycle. Additional efforts such as stratification and over-sampling are required to increase representativeness among hard to reach groups such as younger, single and multiparous women before expanding the project to an ongoing, national surveillance system in Ireland.
BACKGROUNDPaediatric obesity is a global public health issue. Prenatal maternal mental health is potentially implicated in the development of childhood obesity. This study examined associations ...between prenatal maternal cortisol, self-reported stress, anxiety and depression in the second trimester, and childhood overweight and obesity at 5 years of age.METHODSA nested case-control study was conducted using data from the Irish prospective longitudinal birth cohort SCOPE BASELINE. Cases were children with overweight or obesity, operationalised as having a BMI z-score above +2 standard deviations. Controls were children with a BMI z-score between -0.5 and 0.5 standard deviations at 5 years of age. Two to one matching by sex was conducted. Thirty-eight cases and 83 sex-matched controls were included. Maternal serum cortisol concentration and self-reported stress, anxiety and depression were measured at 15 ± 1 and 20 ± 1 weeks gestation. Conditional logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between prenatal maternal cortisol and self-reported stress, anxiety and depression, and childhood overweight and obesity.RESULTSDespite some evidence for associations between anxiety and depression, and child BMI z-scores in univariate analyses, adjusted models indicated no associations between prenatal maternal stress (OR: 1.02, 95% CI: 0.94-1.12), anxiety (OR: 1.03, 95% CI: 0.97-1.09), depression (OR: 1.04, 95% CI: 0.91-1.19), or cortisol concentration (OR: 0.99, 95% CI: 0.99-1.00) and child BMI z-score.CONCLUSIONOur findings do not provide support for associations between foetal exposure during the second trimester of pregnancy and maternal cortisol, stress and anxiety, and childhood overweight or obesity at 5 years of age.
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