Skipping breakfast before and during early pregnancy and incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus: the Japan Environment and Children's Study.

Background: There is little evidence linking breakfast skipping to the incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the prospective association of breakfast consumption with the incidence of GDM.

Methods: A total of 103,099 pregnancies were registered during study enrollment (January 2011 to March 2014), involving 97,454 pregnant women from 15 areas across Japan. Singleton pregnant women free of GDM, stroke, heart disease, cancer, and type 1 or type 2 diabetes at the study enrollment were eligible for analysis. We used a self-administered questionnaire to obtain data on demographic information, socioeconomic status, self-rated health status, disease history, lifestyle, and dietary habits of each woman at study enrollment. A semiquantitative FFQ was used for dietary assessment. We used logistic regression to obtain the OR of GDM in relation to breakfast consumption.

Results: Among 84,669 pregnant women for analysis, 1935 cases of GDM were documented. After adjustment for potential confounding factors including prepregnancy BMI, the multivariable-adjusted ORs of GDM for women who consumed breakfast 5-6 times/wk, 3-4 times/wk, and 0-2 times/wk were 1.09 (95% CI: 0.93, 1.27), 1.14 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.34), and 1.21 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.41), respectively, compared with daily breakfast eaters. The association appeared to be dose dependent (P-trend = 0.006) and was not significantly modified by prepregnancy BMI.

Conclusions: Breakfast consumption <3 times/wk before and during early pregnancy, compared with daily consumption, was associated with an increased odds of developing GDM.