Associations between sugar-sweetened beverages before and during pregnancy and offspring overweight/obesity in Japanese women: the TMM BirThree Cohort Study

The association between high sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) intake during pregnancy and offspring overweight/obesity has been reported only from Western countries. The objective of this study was to examine the association between SSB intake before and during pregnancy and offspring overweight/obesity among Japanese women. Japanese prospective birth cohort study. We analysed mother-offspring pairs who participated in the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study from 2013 to 2017. SSB intake during pregnancy was evaluated using the FFQ and classified into three groups: none (0 g/d), medium (195 g/d). Overweight or obesity at 1 year of age in offspring was defined as having a BMI -score greater than 2 sd, calculated based on the BMI reference data for Japanese children. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the associations between SSB intake before and during pregnancy and offspring overweight/obesity, after adjusting for covariates. Japanese mother-offspring pairs ( 7114). The overweight/obesity rate of the offspring was 8·8 %. Pregnant women with a high intake of SSB in early to mid-pregnancy had a higher risk of overweight/obesity in their offspring compared with those who did not; the OR was 1·52 (95 % CI (1·09, 2·12)). High SSB intake in early to mid-pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of offspring overweight/obesity at 1 year of age.