Keeping baby weight under control

By Li Zhixin

Pregnant woman may be eating for two, but one new study reports that women who gain too much weight during their pregnancies may deliver early or give birth to overweight infants.

Balanced meals that provide good nutrition for two are the best way to ensure both pregnant mothers and their babies stay healthy.

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Overeaters may have obese babies

Women who gain too much weight during pregnancy put their children at risk of obesity later in life, according to an Associated Press report about US researchers who tracked women during their second pregnancies in Michigan and New Jersey from 1989 and 2003.

Among the 513,000 women and 1.1 million infants studied, scientists found that women who gained more than 24 kilograms during their pregnancy produced babies who were 150 grams heavier at birth than the infants of women who gained 10 kilograms.

The study was published online at the beginning of the month in the medical journal Lancet.

“Heavier babies have a significantly higher risk of staying heavy throughout their lives,” said David Ludwig, one of the doctors who wrote the report. “Big babies also have higher chances of developing problems later in life including asthma, allergies and even cancer.”

Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and his co-author said most women put on similar weight at pregnancy, though some become heavier during subsequent births.

Previous studies found that pregnant women who gained too much weight developed diabetes and high blood pressure, but little research explored what those extra pounds meant for the babies.

Typically, large babies are more likely to become stuck in the birth canal or to require a cesarean section.

Ludwig said that when pregnant women overeat, some of those extra calories over-stimulate fetal growth.

“The fetus ends up developing in an abnormal metabolic environment where there is excess blood sugar. That could alter the development of tissues, organs and perhaps even the wiring of the brain that regulates appetite and metabolism,” Ludwig said.

The doctors said that obesity prevention in the womb was not about encouraging pregnant women to trim down — women who gain too little weight are at increased risk of having a small baby or of developing diabetes, high blood pressure and varicose veins.