Writing in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers at the Chinese dairy company Beijing Sanyuan Foods and other institutions in China explored the effects of yogurt enriched with prebiotics and probiotics from early pregnancy to three years postpartum.
While children of overweight and obese mothers supplemented with the yogurt did not have significantly lower weight, the intervention did appear to prevent excessive weight gain and enhance the abundance of beneficial gut microbiota.
Impact of maternal weight
Evidence suggests that maternal and pre-pregnancy obesity and overweight are linked to an increased risk of complications and adverse outcomes that can affect both the mother and child.
Children born to overweight mothers may have an elevated birth weight, and the risk of obesity in one-year-old infants can increase threefold, the researchers noted.
Probiotics have the potential to influence maternal and child weight by increasing gut microbiota diversity. Beneficial bacteria consumed by the mother may colonize the infant’s gut and alter its composition.
Study details
The study included 90 infants born to mothers with a pre-pregnancy BMI of at least 25 kg/m2 who consumed the yogurt (YC) daily during pregrancy. Two control groups were also included: 70 infants born to mothers with normal pre-pregnacy weight (NC) and 66 infants born to mothers with a pre-pregnancy BMI of at least 25 kg/m2 (CC) who did not consume the yogurt intervention.
Fecal samples collected at 42 days and 3 months follow-up found that “infant weights were significantly higher in the YC group than in the NC group,” the researchers wrote.
There were higher percentages in the middle and upper weight grades in the YC and CC groups, “suggesting that infants of women who were overweight/obese during pregnancy are at an increased risk of obesity, which is consistent with the current results”, they noted.
“In the present study, providing mothers with probiotic–prebiotic yogurt did not significantly reduce their child’s weight but prevented excessive weight gain,” the researchers reported. They noted that this may be because the child’s weight is influenced far more by maternal weight gain than the yogurt intervention, and therefore, providing yogurt directly to infants and children may be a more effective way to manage their weight.
The β-diversity analysis of the gut microbiota showed significant differences in bacterial composition, including Blautia, Lactobacillus, Veillonella, Fusicatenibacter and Akkermansia, between children born to overweight or normal-weight mothers. However, these differences gradually decreased, “suggesting that the effects of maternal weight and yogurt intervention on the child’s gut microbiota decreased over time.”
The researchers noted some limitations of their study, including a “a paucity of post-12-month clinical data,” due to unforeseen circumstances and participant withdrawal.
Source: Frontiers in Nutrition. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2026.1733803. “Maternal overweight/obesity and yoghurt supplementation from early pregnancy to postpartum augments infant gut microbiota”. Authors: L. Jia et al.
