Pregnancy like a diet

Even a couple of extra pounds can be critical if, after the first pregnancy, a woman recovers at least 3.5 kg, her mother’s health and her next child will be at risk even if her weight does not go beyond the medical norm. The study published in the British Medical Journal of The Lancet claims that weight gain between pregnancies (but, of course, not during pregnancy itself) increases the risk of such complications when gesturing a second child, such as diabetes and hypertension, and can even lead to the birth of a dead fetus. This is another argument in favor of the fact that complete women planning pregnancy should lose weight. And those whose weight is normal should carefully follow it.

Eduardo Villamor from Harvard University, the USA, and Sven Knettings from the Caroline Institute, Sweden, studied medical cards of more than 150 thousand Swedes, giving birth in 1992-2001. The analysis was taken as the basis of the body mass index, which is calculated as a ratio of weight (in kilograms) to growth in a square (growth is indicated in meters). The norm is considered the value of the index in the range from 20 to 25. Scientists compared the values of the body mass index at the beginning of two consecutive pregnancies, noting cases of such complications during the second pregnancy, such as diabetes and hypertension. It was also taken into account whether there was a cesarean section and the birth of a dead child.

The results are striking: according to the results of the study, an increase in the body mass index by 1-2 points increases the risk of diabetes and hypertension during pregnancy by 40%. And with an increase in the index by 3 or more points, the risk of giving birth to a dead child increases by 63%.

Daniel Herron from the Mount Sinai Hospital clinic in New York commented on the results: “For a long time it was believed that only fat people are at risk of sick diabetes. And now it turns out that even a small weight gain can be critical. This is something new. ”

“This is the first study that shows a causal relationship between obscenity and an unfavorable medical forecast,” said Associated Press , Dr. Mario Merialdi, a reproductive health specialist from the World Health Organization. He noted that although similar hypotheses spoke in previous developments, they were not backed up by facts.

However, Aaron Kofi from the University of California at San Francisco in a commentary on the article in The Lancet magazine writes that, as in many other significant studies, this work "touches on questions that only facts cannot give an answer." One of the shortcomings of the hypothesis he believes that the cause of weight gain can be the same diseases that the authors of the work indicate the danger of the occurrence of the occurrence. Kofi suggests that much depends on breastfeeding: women who breastfeed, usually slimmer than those whose children were artificial feeding.

To confirm the connection between excess weight and complications during pregnancy, further research is needed. But Dr. Herron believes that women who are going to get pregnant should not wait for their results. “Let these data make those who believe that a couple of kilograms of weather will not think,” he said.

10.10.2006 / Natalya Konovodova, the material was published in the newspaper No. 185 dated 11/11/2006.