Maternal gestational hypertension, smoking and pre-eclampsia are associated with metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease in overweight offspring.

Introduction: Due to a steep increase in obesity, metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) has also become the most common chronic hepatic condition among children and adolescents. Various maternal and pregnancy-related factors have also been implicated in the development of MAFLD, but human studies remain scarce.

Material And Methods: Comprehensive data of 460 overweight or obese children aged 2-16 years were collected and combined with data on selected maternal and pregnancy-related factors for a case-control study.

Effects of maternal smoking on body size and proportions at birth: a register-based cohort study of 1.4 million births.

Objectives: The aim of our work was to analyse the effect of maternal smoking on body size and body proportions of newborns when the mother had smoked only during the first trimester, in comparison with continued smoking after the first trimester. Furthermore, we have evaluated how growth restriction associated with maternal smoking contributes to changes in body proportions.

Design: Register-based cohort study SETTING: Maternal Exposure (MATEX) cohort identified from the Finnish Medical Birth Register.

Smoking during pregnancy in Finland - Trends in the MATEX cohort.

In Finland, smoking rates in the general population are decreasing due to increased awareness of the adverse effects and tightened tobacco legislation. However, previous studies have shown that smoking in pregnant Finnish women remained as high as in the general Finnish female population at around 15% in 2010. Our aim was to describe temporal and spatial trends in smoking behaviour, and determinants of changes in smoking behaviour between first and second pregnancy.

The MATEX cohort - a Finnish population register birth cohort to study health effects of prenatal exposures.

Background: The prevalence of chronic diseases, such as immune, neurobehavioral, and metabolic disorders has increased in recent decades. According to the concept of Developmental Origin of Health and Disease (DOHaD), developmental factors associated with environmental exposures and maternal lifestyle choices may partly explain the observed increase. Register-based epidemiology is a prime tool to investigate the effects of prenatal exposures over the whole life course.