The Survey is part of the work of the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre, directed by Professor Nicholas Harvey (previously Professor Cyrus Cooper). The MRC LEC is an internationally-recognised centre for the study of early life influences on later health.  The Centre forms part of the work of the UK Medical Research Council and is based at the University of Southampton.

A baby is nourished by its mother’s body stores of protein and fat and by what she eats in pregnancy. In this way, a mother’s body composition and diet has an effect on the health of her baby.

Previous research has shown that mothers’ diets actually help determine their babies’ susceptibility to certain disorders when they themselves reach adulthood. These include coronary heart disease, diabetes, raised blood pressure and stroke. Women who took part in the Survey and went on to become pregnant have provided real insights into how a mother’s size, shape and diet both before and during pregnancy affect her baby’s health and development.

The Survey included 12,583 women in total, recruited between 1998 and 2002. Of these, 3,158 subsequently became pregnant and were recruited into the pregnancy part of the survey. Pregnancy recruitment stopped in 2007. With each woman’s consent, we followed her through her pregnancy and monitored the health of her baby. We have our own scanning unit at the Princess Anne Maternity Hospital and the women were offered scans at 11 and 34 weeks, in addition to the routine 19 week scan. These babies were followed up through infancy and now through childhood. We completed a follow-up children at ages 11-13 years in 2022 and then carried out an survey of young people aged 17-19 year using a postal or online questionnaire.

The Southampton Women’s Survey is part of CLOSER.

CLOSER, the home of longitudinal research, brings together world-leading longitudinal studies to maximise their use, value and impact and improve our understanding of key social and biomedical challenges.

You can search and browse questionnaires and data from our study using the CLOSER Discovery search engine. CLOSER Discovery is an online platform that allows users to explore the content of multiple UK longitudinal studies. CLOSER Discovery is regularly updated to include more content from each longitudinal study. The full list of study questionnaires and datasets currently available in CLOSER Discovery, as well as the instruments that will be added at a later date, can be found on the website.