Everything feels just a little heavier, more wrought with implications, you know? - a mixed-methods study examining lifestyle behaviors, health, and well-being of pregnant and postpartum women during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: While the striking impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, heath care access and lifestyle behaviors, including perceived health, diet, physical activity, and sleep has been reported, few studies have examined these domains jointly among pregnant and postpartum people in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: This mixed methods study was conducted among a subset of participants (n = 22) in a cohort study in Austin, Texas, who were pregnant or had recently delivered when the outbreak occurred. Measures were from the early second trimester up to 6 months postpartum.

Infant body composition trajectories differ by in utero exposure to gestational diabetes mellitus: a prospective cohort from birth to 12 months.

Background: Infants exposed to gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in utero are known to have higher fat mass (FM) and less fat-free mass (FFM) at birth, but little is known about how their adiposity changes over the first year of life.

Objectives: We identified growth and body composition patterns across the first year and evaluated for differences by GDM exposure status.

Methods: Among 198 infants (52% GDM exposed), growth and body composition with total body electrical conductivity were obtained from birth to 1 y.

Neighborhood Diversity Is Good for Your Health: An Example of Racial/Ethnic Integration and Preterm Birth in Texas.

Racial concentration of neighborhoods is often associated with the risk of preterm birth (PTB) for women. This study examined differences between racially diverse and racially concentrated neighborhoods when examining preterm birth. Individual-level data were obtained from Texas natality files for 2009-2011, and neighborhood-level (i.

Postpartum Obesity Is Associated With Increases in Child Adiposity in Midchildhood in a Cohort of Black and Dominican Youth.

Background: Obesity disproportionately affects marginalized and low-income populations. Birth parent obesity from the prenatal period and childhood has been associated with child obesity. It is unknown whether prenatal or postnatal birth parent obesity has differential effects on subsequent changes in adiposity and metabolic health in children.

Weight Loss, Stability, and Low Weight Gain during Pregnancy among Individuals with Obesity: Associations with Adverse Perinatal Outcomes: An Observational Study.

Objective: The safety of weight loss and low weight gain during pregnancy remains unclear. To determine how different patterns of gestational weight gain (GWG), including weight loss, stability, and low GWG relate to perinatal outcomes by prepregnancy obesity class.

Study Design: The study population included 29,408 singleton livebirths among pregnant people with obesity from Kaiser Permanente Northern California (2008-2013).

Neighborhood Food Environment and Birth Weight Outcomes in New York City.

Importance: Infants born with unhealthy birth weight are at greater risk for long-term health complications, but little is known about how neighborhood characteristics (eg, walkability, food environment) may affect birth weight outcomes.

Objective: To assess whether neighborhood-level characteristics (poverty rate, food environment, and walkability) are associated with risk of unhealthy birth weight outcomes and to evaluate whether gestational weight gain mediated these associations.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The population-based cross-sectional study included births in the 2015 vital statistics records from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Prenatal Weight Change Trajectories and Perinatal Outcomes among Twin Gestations.

Objective: Despite an increase in twin pregnancies in recent decades, the Institute of Medicine twin weight gain recommendations remain provisional and provide no guidance for the pattern or timing of weight change. We sought to characterize gestational weight change trajectory patterns and examine associations with birth outcomes in a cohort of twin pregnancies.

Study Design: Prenatal and delivery records were examined for 320 twin pregnancies from a maternal-fetal medicine practice in Austin, TX 2011-2019.

Body Composition Trajectories During the First 23 Months of Life Differ by HIV Exposure Among Infants in Western Kenya: A Prospective Study.

Background: Infants who are HIV-exposed and uninfected have suboptimal growth patterns compared to those who are HIV-unexposed and uninfected. However, little is known about how these patterns persist beyond 1 year of life.

Objectives: This study aimed to examine whether infant body composition and growth trajectories differed by HIV exposure during the first 2 years of life among Kenyan infants using advanced growth modeling.

Novel approaches to examining weight changes in pregnancies affected by obesity.

Background: Current gestational weight change (GWC) recommendations for obese individuals were established with limited evidence of the pattern and timing of weight change across pregnancy. Similarly, the recommendation of 5-9 kg does not differentiate by the severity of obesity.

Objectives: We sought to describe GWC trajectory classes by obesity grade and associated infant outcomes among a large, diverse cohort.

Neighbourhood walkability is associated with risk of gestational diabetes: A cross-sectional study in New York City.

Background: Despite the links between neighbourhood walkability and physical activity, body size and risk of diabetes, there are few studies of neighbourhood walkability and risk of gestational diabetes (GD).

Objectives: Assess whether higher neighbourhood walkability is associated with lower risk of GD in New York City (NYC).

Methods: Cross-sectional analyses of a neighbourhood walkability index (NWI) score and density of walkable destinations (DWD) and risk of GD in 109,863 births recorded in NYC in 2015.

Prenatal weight and regional body composition trajectories and neonatal body composition: The NICHD Foetal Growth Studies.

Background: Gestational weight gain (GWG) and anthropometric trajectories may affect foetal programming and are potentially modifiable.

Objectives: To assess concomitant patterns of change in weight, circumferences and adiposity across gestation as an integrated prenatal exposure, and determine how they relate to neonatal body composition.

Methods: Data are from a prospective cohort of singleton pregnancies (n = 2182) enrolled in United States perinatal centres, 2009-2013.

Breastfeeding, socioeconomic status, and long-term postpartum weight retention.

Background: Almost half of all pregnant women in the United States gain weight above Institute of Medicine gestational weight gain guidelines. Breastfeeding has been shown to reduce weight retention in the first year postpartum; however, women with lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to initiate breastfeeding less often than women with higher SES. We investigated associations between duration of breastfeeding with mother's long-term postpartum weight status at 4-10 years and evaluated whether the associations varied by SES.

Pathways linking social support, self-efficacy, and exclusive breastfeeding among women in northern Uganda.

Despite improvements in infant feeding practices over the past two decades, the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is below global targets. Social support can create an enabling environment for recommended infant feeding practices such as EBF, but the types of social support most important for sustained EBF and their potential mechanisms of action have not been thoroughly characterized. We therefore aimed to assess the relationship between EBF-specific social support, EBF self-efficacy, and EBF at 1 and 3 months among postpartum women in northern Uganda.

Breakfast Consumption May Improve Fasting Insulin, HOMA-IR, and HbA1c Levels in Predominately Low-Income, Hispanic Children 7-12 Years of Age.

Children from low-income households and minority families have high cardiometabolic risk. Although breakfast consumption is known to improve cardiometabolic health in children, limited randomized control trials (RCT) have explored this association in low-income and racial/ethnic U.S.

Gestational weight change and childhood body composition trajectories from pregnancy to early adolescence.

Objective: A mother-child dyad trajectory model of weight and body composition spanning from conception to adolescence was developed to understand how early life exposures shape childhood body composition.

Methods: African American (49.3%) and Dominican (50.

Neighborhood walkability and poverty predict excessive gestational weight gain: A cross-sectional study in New York City.

Objective: This study evaluated associations between neighborhood-level characteristics and gestational weight gain (GWG) in a population-level study of 2015 New York City births.

Methods: Generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) for associations between neighborhood-level characteristics (poverty, food environment, walkability) within 1 km of a residential Census block centroid and excessive or inadequate GWG compared with recommended GWG. All models were adjusted for individual-level sociodemographic characteristics.

What stops us from eating: a qualitative investigation of dietary barriers during pregnancy in Punjab, Pakistan.

Objective: Adequate dietary intake during pregnancy is vital for the health and nutritional status of both mother and fetus. The nutritional status of reproductive age women in Pakistan is poor, with 14 % being underweight (BMI < 18·5) and 42 % experiencing Fe deficiency anaemia. This may stem from beliefs, practices and other barriers influencing dietary intake.

No sustained effects of an intervention to prevent excessive GWG on offspring fat and lean mass at 54 weeks: Yet a greater head circumference persists.

Background: LIFT (Lifestyle Intervention for Two) trial found that intervening in women with overweight and obesity through promoting healthy diet and physical activity to control gestational weight gain (GWG) resulted in neonates with greater weight, lean mass and head circumference and similar fat mass at birth. Whether these neonate outcomes are sustained at 1-year was the focus of this investigation.

Methods: Measures included body composition by PEA POD air displacement plethysmography (ADP) and Echo Infant quantitative magnetic resonance (QMR) and head circumference at birth (n = 169), 14 (n = 136) and 54 weeks (n = 137).

HIV-Exposed, Uninfected Infants in Uganda Experience Poorer Growth and Body Composition Trajectories than HIV-Unexposed Infants.

Background: HIV-uninfected infants of HIV-positive women may experience worse growth and health outcomes than infants of HIV-negative women, but this has not been thoroughly investigated under the World Health Organization's most recent recommendations to reduce vertical transmission.

Objective: To determine whether HIV-exposed and -uninfected (HEU) infants whose mothers received Option B+ have higher odds of experiencing suboptimal growth trajectories than HIV-unexposed, -uninfected infants, and if this relationship is affected by food insecurity.

Design: Repeated anthropometric measures were taken on 238 infants (HEU = 86) at 1 week and 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after delivery in Gulu, Uganda.

Prelacteal feeding practices in Pakistan: a mixed-methods study.

Background: Prelacteal feeding, the feeding a newborn substances or liquids before breastfeeding, is a common cultural practice in Pakistan, but is associated with neonatal morbidity and mortality because it delays early initiation of breastfeeding. In this study, we sought to examine the social and cultural factors associated with prelacteal feeding in Pakistan.

Methods: This mixed-method study used data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13.

HIV infection, hunger, breastfeeding self-efficacy, and depressive symptoms are associated with exclusive breastfeeding to six months among women in western Kenya: a longitudinal observational study.

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is recommended for all infants. However, breastfeeding rates remain suboptimal; around 37% of infants are exclusively breastfed for the first six months globally. In Nyanza region, western Kenya, numerous challenges to breastfeeding have been identified, including food insecurity, hunger, depressive symptoms, and HIV infection.

Prepregnancy obesity is associated with cognitive outcomes in boys in a low-income, multiethnic birth cohort.

Background: Maternal obesity and high gestational weight gain (GWG) disproportionally affect low-income populations and may be associated with child neurodevelopment in a sex-specific manner. We examined sex-specific associations between prepregnancy BMI, GWG, and child neurodevelopment at age 7.

Methods: Data are from a prospective low-income cohort of African American and Dominican women (n = 368; 44.

The Relation of Birth Weight and Adiposity Across the Life Course to Semen Quality in Middle Age.

Background: Studies of body mass index and semen quality have reported mixed results, but almost all were cross-sectional and many were conducted in selected populations. Longitudinal studies in population-based cohorts are necessary to identify how timing and duration of excess adiposity may affect semen quality.

Methods: In 193 members of the Child Health and Development Studies birth cohort, we examined associations of birth weight and adiposity at six time points spanning early childhood and adulthood with sperm concentration, motility, and morphology at mean age 44 years, as well as with corresponding 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) subfertility reference levels.