Maternal obesity is a significant risk factor for congenital heart disease in newborns in Mexico, with an odds ratio of 5.23, making screening of all newborns of obese mothers urgent.
Maternal obesity was associated with a significantly increased odds of congenital heart disease in newborns.
Higher maternal BMI as a continuous variable was independently associated with increased risk of congenital heart disease in the newborn.
Female sex of the newborn was associated with a trend toward increased risk of congenital heart disease, though not statistically significant at conventional thresholds.
Newborns with congenital heart disease had lower gestational age and lower birth weight compared to newborns without CHD.
The study design used a 1:1 retrospective case-control approach of newborns evaluated by neonatal echocardiography.
The authors concluded that universal CHD screening should be implemented for all newborns of mothers with obesity.
This research suggests that mothers who are obese during pregnancy are significantly more likely to have babies born with congenital heart disease (CHD) — structural problems with the heart present at birth. In a study of 800 newborns in Mexico, babies born to obese mothers had more than five times the odds of having a congenital heart defect compared to babies born to non-obese mothers. The researchers also found that higher maternal body mass index (BMI) as a continuous measure was independently linked to increased CHD risk, meaning the association was not just about crossing a threshold into 'obesity' but reflected a gradient of increasing risk with increasing weight. The study also noted that newborns with CHD tended to be born earlier and at lower birth weights, and that female newborns appeared somewhat more likely to have CHD, though this last finding did not reach conventional statistical significance. Approximately 26.7% of mothers in the study were obese, and the prevalence of obesity was nearly three times higher among mothers of babies with CHD (19.9%) compared to mothers of healthy-heart babies (7%). This research suggests that maternal obesity is an important and potentially modifiable risk factor for congenital heart disease in Mexico. The findings point to a need for public health efforts focused on weight management before and during pregnancy, and the authors call for routine heart screening (echocardiography) for all newborns whose mothers had obesity during pregnancy, so that any heart defects can be identified and treated as early as possible.
Morales-Ibarra A, Ángeles-Ruedas J, León-Yepez M, Barajas-Martínez M, Villegas-Ponce N, Arellano-Llamas A. (2026). [Obesity during pregnancy is associated to congenital cardiopathies in the newborn].. Revista medica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21462746