Abstract: Objective · To examine the association of maternal dietary patterns during pregnancy with the risk of ventricular septal defect (VSD) in offspring. Methods · Seventy-three children with VSD were selected as cases from June 1, 2016 to December 1, 2016; another 73 children without congenital heart or other defects were selected as controls during the corresponding period. VSD was diagnosed by clinical examination and echocardiography figure. Both cases and controls were recruited from Shanghai Children’s Medical Center. All the children’s mothers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire, which includes information on demographic characteristics and food frequency during pregnancy. Dietary patterns were defined by the factor analysis module of SPSS 23.0. The association between dietary patterns during pregnancy and VSD risk was analyzed by Logistic regression model. Results · Four dietary patterns were obtained by the factor analysis, i.e. vegetable-fruit-high-quality protein pattern, animal food pattern, high sodium and high fat pattern and aquatic product pattern. After adjusting for possible confounding factors, it was demonstrated that the vegetablefruit-high-quality protein pattern and aquatic product pattern were negatively associated with VSD risk in offspring (P<0.05). Conclusion · Maternal dietary patterns during pregnancy that are rich in high-quality protein, vegetables, fruit and aquatic products may be helpful for decreasing VSD risk in offspring.

Key words: ventricular septal defect, dietary pattern, pregnancy, case-control study