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According to a study, women who are overweight before pregnancy are more likely to have children with asthma.
Japanese researchers found that mothers who were obese before conception were 28 percent more likely to have a child diagnosed with asthma before the age of three.
Overweight women were 17 percent more likely to have a young child with asthma than women of a healthy weight.
Some experts have suggested this may be because overweight women produce more of a hormone called leptin, which can make their unborn child's airways more sensitive.
Co-author Dr. Emiko Noguchi from the University of Tsukuba said: "[These findings] because asthma is often a lifelong condition that can disrupt everyday life."
Japanese researchers have found that women who are overweight before pregnancy are more likely to have a child with asthma
Asthma is the most common long-term condition among children in the UK, affecting around one in 11 young people.
The study of more than 67,000 women was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Women's pre-pregnancy weight was obtained from their medical records or a questionnaire.
While three-quarters had a normal body mass index (BMI), about 7 percent were overweight before conception and almost two percent were obese.
Among children, 11 percent had asthma before the age of three.
The higher risk of asthma in children of obese mothers compared to those of mothers of healthy weight was found even after controlling for other important factors.
These included whether mothers had asthma, which they are more likely to pass on to their children, whether they smoked during pregnancy, which makes childhood asthma more likely, and the gender of their children, as asthma is more common in boys during childhood.
However, the authors point out that the study was carried out in Japan, where obesity is far less common than in the UK.
Researchers also found that cow's milk and egg allergies were less common in toddlers and babies born to obese mothers, although the cause was unclear.
The study found no association between maternal weight and childhood eczema when researchers also examined it.
But the analysis, conducted on women recruited for a nationwide Japanese study between 2011 and 2014, supports previous evidence that asthma is more common in children of overweight mothers.
It follows a 2011 study suggesting that obese pregnant women put their children at greater risk of developing asthma.
The study, which involved nearly 130,000 Swedish mothers, found that children of severely obese women were 57 percent more likely to develop asthma than children of mothers of a healthy weight.
Children of slightly overweight mothers with a BMI between 25 and 30 also had a slightly increased risk of asthma.
Commenting on the new findings, Dr. Noguchi: "Women should pay attention to their weight before pregnancy to reduce their own risk of many diseases and possibly also their child's risk of asthma."