Early life influences on child weight outcomes in the Study to Explore Early Development

The Study to Explore Early Development is a multi-site case–control study of children, aged 2–5 years, classified as autism spectrum disorder ( n = 668), developmental delays ( n = 914), or population controls ( n = 884).

Maternal gestational weight gain was compared to the Institute of Medicine recommendations. Rapid weight gain was a change in weight-for-age z -scores from birth to 6 months > 0.67 standard deviations. After adjusting for case status, mothers with pre-pregnancy overweight/obesity were 2.38 times (95% confidence interval: 1.96–2.90) more likely, and mothers who exceeded gestational weight gain recommendations were 1.48 times (95% confidence interval: 1.17–1.87) more likely, to have an overweight/obese child than other mothers ( P P