Inadequate Weight Gain During Pregnancy a Risk Factor for Psychosis in Offspring

Increases in risk for psychosis have been reported in children of mothers exposed to famine. To examine the influence of maternal weight on this risk, investigators compared data from Swedish national registers on 562,042 people born in the 1980s.

Gestational weight gain (GWG) was categorized as ideal, extremely inadequate, inadequate, excessive, or extremely excessive. By a mean age of 26 years, 2910 subjects had developed a nonaffective psychosis (schizophrenia in 704).

The risk for nonaffective psychosis was significantly increased by 21% in children of mothers who were “mildly thin” early in pregnancy (body-mass index, 17.0–18.5). In analyses controlling for relevant medical and familial risk factors, the likelihood of psychosis when moth…