Maternal overweight and obesity during pregnancy increases the risk of type 2 diabetes in offspring, a study suggests.

A research team, led by Dr Rebecca Reynolds from the University of Edinburgh, linked birth records of 118,200 children born between 1950 and 2011 in Aberdeen to Scotland’s national register for diagnosed diabetes.

They found children whose mothers had a BMI of 30kg/m2 or more at their first antenatal visit were 3.5 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those whose mothers were in the normal weight range.

The analysis adjusted for potential confounding factors, including maternal history of diabetes or hypertension before and in pregnancy, maternal age at delivery, and the parity and sex of the child.