Obesidade materna e relação com o comprimento relativos dos telômeros materno e neonatal

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the relationship between the relative telomere length of maternal and newborn cells and the pregestational Body Mass Index (BMI) of puerperal women, as well as weight gain during pregnancy. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted with data collected from June 2024 to June 2025 from puerperal women and newborns attended at the Hospital Regional do Oeste de Santa Catarina (HRO), in Chapecó, Santa Catarina. The study included women who had full-term, singleton births. Newborns with congenital or syndromic anomalies, and puerperal women who experienced miscarriage or stillbirth, whose babies died, required admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) within the first hours of life, or presented neonatal complications such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia, were excluded. Puerperal women with cognitive impairments preventing them from answering the questionnaire were also excluded, as well as cases with inadequate samples for analysis or incomplete information on weight and height. Data collection included interviews and sampling of maternal and neonatal oral mucosal cells for analysis of relative telomere length using qPCR (T/S ratio). Maternal and neonatal relative telomere lengths were considered dependent variables, while pregestational BMI and gestational weight gain were considered independent variables. Data were entered in EpiData 3.1 and analyzed using PSPP through descriptive statistics and chi-square tests, with a significance level of p<0.05. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee (CEP) of the Federal University of Fronteira Sul (UFFS), under protocol number 6,825,369. Results: A total of 62 mother–newborn pairs were included in the study. Most puerperal women were between 21 and 35 years old (85.6%), had completed or incomplete high school education (56.5%), lived with a partner (87.1%), and had paid employment (59.7%). Before pregnancy, 56.5% were overweight or obese, 69.4% were non-drinkers, and 82.3% were non-smokers. Most (83.9%) had inadequate weight gain during pregnancy. The majority of newborns were male (51.9%) and had a birth weight between 3,001 and 4,000 g (64.5%). It was observed that 61.3% of puerperal women with overweight/obesity had T/S values below the median (p = 0.074), and similarly, 57.1% of newborns from mothers with prepregnancy overweight/obesity had T/S ratios below the median (p = 0.266). Among women with inadequate weight gain, 52.5% of newborns showed T/S ratios below the median (p = 0.243). However, no statistically significant differences were found between the groups. Conclusions: A trend toward reduced maternal and neonatal relative telomere length was observed in relation to the analyzed variables; however, this difference was not statistically significant, indicating the need for studies with larger sample sizes and control of potential confounding factors to better elucidate this relationship.