Maternal obesity and offspring mental health
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Maternal pre-pregnancy obesity and risk of mental health disorders in the offspring
IRAS ID
212025
Contact name
Rebecca Reynolds
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Mental health problems are common and place significant burden on the individual, their family and society. There is a need to understand the underlying causes. Evidence suggests that risk of mental health disorders may be determined during very early fetal development in the womb. Maternal health, and particularly maternal obesity is a potential factor contributing to risk of mental health problems in the offspring. This is very relevant as currently 1 in 5 women in the UK are obese at the time of pregnancy. A few studies have investigated this but the results have been inconsistent due to small study size and limited duration of follow up. We plan to use a unique database, The Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank to address this question as it contain data on mums and their babies since the 1950s to present day and also has information about maternal weight in pregnancy. If our findings enable us to identify risk factors for mental disorders, this might then in the future lead to the possibility of developing targeted preventive interventions for mental disorders.
REC name
London - Dulwich Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/1410
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion