Fig. 4
Visualization and summary of proportions mediated in single and multiple mediation analyses. A A summary and visualization of proportions mediated in the single and multiple mediation analyses. Adjusted for child’s sex, birthyear, maternal age, birth order, maternal birth country, disposable income at birth, and maternal psychiatric history. Analyses for GDM were additionally adjusted for maternal BMI. Multiple mediators included in the analysis were subsequently presented as individual mediators in the subsequent single mediation analyses for each exposure and outcome. Proportions mediated were presented in bold for NIEs with a 99.6% CI not encompassing a value of 1 in multiple mediation analysis (see Additional file 1: Table S4) and for PBonferroni corrected < 0.004 in single mediation analysis, with both NDE and NIE having the same direction. B A summary and visualization of multiple mediation analyses of mediators at different stages. Adjusted for child’s sex, birthyear, maternal age, birth order, maternal birth country, disposable income at birth, and maternal psychiatric history. Analyses for GDM were additionally adjusted for maternal BMI. The rationale for including different mediators in each multiple mediation analysis was described in Additional file 1: Figure S1. Mediators in stage 1 for PGDM and GDM included the following: pregnancy hypertensive diseases, placenta/membrane disorders, and gestational infection. Mediators in stage 1 for adiposity include: pregnancy hypertensive diseases, placenta/membrane disorders, gestational infection, and GDM. Mediators in stage 2 included the following: SGA, and LGA, intrauterine hypoxia, labor complications, and preterm birth. Mediators in stage 3 included the following: neonatal asphyxia comorbidities, neonatal hematological comorbidities, neonatal hypoglycemia, and neonatal infection. Proportions mediated were presented in bold for NIEs with a 99.6% CI not encompassing a value of 1 in multiple mediation analysis (see Additional file 1: Table S4)