Pregnancy Weight Gain
Linked to Obesity Rise

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If a woman gains a lot of weight during pregnancy, she runs the risk of being significantly overweight even a year after delivering her baby, researchers report.

Dr. Christine Olson, of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and colleagues charted the weights of nearly 600 rural, white women in upstate New York from early pregnancy to one year after giving birth.

Each woman was initially classified by body mass index (BMI) in early pregnancy. BMI is a ratio of weight to height and a value between 19.8 and 26 is considered normal and healthy, Olson noted in a Cornell statement.

Weight measurements were taken throughout the pregnancy and at 6 months and 1 year after giving birth. These measurements were compared with the recommended weight gains for each woman's particular BMI.

Olson found that 42% of women in the study gained more weight during the pregnancy than is recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. According to the IOM guidelines, a woman with a normal BMI can gain up to 35 pounds during pregnancy. On average, the Institute of Medicine reports that a woman will gain about 2.2 pounds within a year after having a baby.

Olson determined that there was a significant retention of weight after a year in women from the normal, high or obese BMI groups who gained more than the recommended weight during pregnancy. One fourth of the women studied were at least 10 pounds heavier one year after giving birth.

The researchers presented their findings at a meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology held in San Diego, California.

``I didn't think that they would be as heavy as they were at one year postpartum. That was a surprise,'' said Olson in an interview with Reuters Health.

The most startling result was that 28 of the women who had not been obese in early pregnancy and had excessive weight gain were considered to be obese at one year postpartum. This clearly suggests that gaining too much weight during pregnancy can lead to obesity after giving birth, Olson explained. Moreover, she added, staying within the recommended weight gain guidelines easily prevents the risk of obesity.

``The most important result of this study is that women should be aware that there is a bottom level that they must stay above but also a top level that they must stay below'' for weight gain during pregnancy, Olson said.

Since the 1960s, the incidence of obesity in women of childbearing age has nearly doubled. Obesity is linked to an increased risk of many chronic health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Reference Source 89

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