Relationship between caesarean delivery and weight status in early childhood: a birth cohort study in Japan

To examine whether the prevailing hypothesis of an association between caesarean section (CS) delivery method and increased weight status in early childhood is observed in Japanese. A total of 1,277 mother-infant pairs from a prospective hospital-based mother-infant birth cohort that recruited women in their first trimester from May 2010 to November 2013 were included. We assessed the relationship between delivery method and weight status of delivered children at 1, 3 and 6 years of age. In total, 366 children (28.7%) were delivered by CS. Delivery by CS was not associated with body mass index (BMI) z-score (≥ 75 percentile) at age 1 year, (odds ratio (OR) 0.97, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.69–1.36), 3 years (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.67–1.42), and 6 years (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.45–1.12), and also showed no association with low weight status (< 25th percentile). Supplemental evaluations addressing the influence of preterm births, pre-pregnancy BMI, emergency CS, and modification by breastfeeding were consistent with the primary analyses. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that children born by CS are at risk of being overweight in childhood among the Japanese population.