Preventing Obesity in Preterm Infants

If you are pregnant, and at least 18 years of age, you may be eligible to participate in a research study called the POPI Study, to better understand how maternal diseases such as diabetes and obesity may affect how babies grow. If you meet study criteria and decide to enroll, you will have one in-person study visit after your baby is born. Over the next 2 years, you will also be asked to complete surveys four times (roughly every 6 months).

For more information please contact: Terri Motraghi, RN 203-215-8964 terri.motraghi@yale.edu or Tessa Kehoe, RN 203-506-3090 tessa.kehoe@yale.edu

Inclusion Criteria:

We will include all infants born to English and Spanish-speaking mothers >18 years of age at YNHH. In the preterm cohort, we will include infants born between 32- and 36- weeks gestational age, and in the term cohort we will include infants born > 37 weeks gestational age.

Since this study will examine the influence of maternal diabetes and obesity during pregnancy on infant growth, we plan to over sample infants of mothers with gestational diabetes and obesity (BMI >30 kg/m2) into the moderately preterm cohort. The diagnosis of diabetes during pregnancy will be defined according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines. We will define a mother as having gestational diabetes if the results of the 3-hour glucose tolerance test are 95 mg/dL for the fasting sample and/or 140 mg/dL for the 3-hour sample. We plan to enroll 90 moderately preterm infants of mothers with gestational diabetes and/or obesity and 30 moderately preterm infants of lean mothers (no diabetes, BMI <30 kg/m2) into the preterm cohort.

Exclusion Criteria:

In both the preterm and term cohorts, we will exclude infants born to mothers < 18 years of age, born to mothers with a known diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes prior to pregnancy, and infants with terminal illness, major congenital anomalies, and/or genetic/chromosomal anomalies. For the term reference group, we will exclude infants born to mothers with obesity and/or gestational diabetes, since this group will be a reference group of term infants born to lean mothers.