Maternal hormonal contraceptive use and offspring overweight or obesity.

ABSTRACT:

Background/objectives

Experiments in animal models have shown a positive association between in utero exposure to pharmacologic sex hormones and offspring obesity. The developmental effects of such hormones on human obesity are unknown.

Subjects/methods

Using data from a large, prospective pregnancy cohort study (n=19 652), with linkage to a national prescription registry, we evaluated the association between use of hormonal contraceptives before and after conception (defined from dispensed prescription data and characterized by last date of use relative to conception, 12 to >4 months before (n=3392), 4 to >1 months before (n=2541), 1 to >0 months before (n=2997) and 0-12 weeks after (n=567)) in relation to offspring overweight or obesity at age 3 years.

Results

We ob

SUBMITTER: Jensen ET 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4365991 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature