Diet quality, omega-3 intake during pregnancy may contribute to healthy infant birthweight

Better diet quality and high omega-3 consumption during pregnancy may promote giving birth to infants with healthy birthweight, a recent study has found.

Researchers conducted a prospective cohort analysis of 547 mother-child dyads. Food frequency questionnaires and dietary recalls were used to measure intake during pregnancy and diet quality was assessed using the Diet Quality Index Adapted for Pregnant Women (IQDAG) score.

At the point of assessment, pregnant women had an average age of 27.2 years and a mean IQDAG score of 70.1 points. Twenty-one infants were born with low birthweight (LBW; 3.8 percent), while 33 had macrosomia (6.0 percent). Fifty-six (10.2 percent) and 61 (11.2 percent) of children were born small (SGA) and large (LGA) for gestational age, respectively.

Logistic regression analysis found significant correlations between maternal pregnancy diet and birthweight. For example, those in the highest tertile of omega-3 intake were significantly less likely to give birth to LBW children (odds ratio [OR], 0.18, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.04–0.83; p-trend=0.02).

Similarly, high levels of omega-3 consumption suppressed the odds of SGA (tertile 3 vs 1: OR, 0.43, 95 percent CI, 0.17–1.07; p-trend=0.03) and LGA (tertile 3 vs 1: OR, 0.33, 95 percent CI, 0.15–0.69; p-trend=0.00).

Aside from omega-3 consumption, better IQDAG scores likewise reduced the likelihood of LGA infants (tertile 3 vs 1: OR, 0.44, 95 percent CI, 0.22–0.90; p-trend=0.02). However, IQDAG did not correlate with any of the other outcome measures.