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Background: Child obesity is a major problem in the United States. Identifying early-life risk factors is necessary for prevention. Maternal diet during pregnancy is a primary source of fetal energy and might influence risk of child obesity.

Objective: We prospectively investigated the influence of maternal dietary patterns during pregnancy on child growth in the first 3 y of life in 389 mother–child pairs from the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition study.

Methods: Dietary patterns were derived with the use of latent class analysis (LCA) based on maternal diet, collected with the use of a food-frequency questionnaire at 26–29 wk gestation. Associations between maternal dietary patterns and child body mass index (BMI)–for-age z score and overweight or obesity were assessed with the use of linear regression and log-binomial regression, respectively. We used linear mixed models to estimate childhood growth patterns in …