Medical recommendations on weight gain in the future mother should be taken into account to avoid complications in pregnancy and childbirth, but also to avoid problems in the baby. According to a study recently published in The Lancet, the overweight pregnant have a higher risk of giving birth babies with more birth weight and an increased risk of the baby developing obesity in the future.
The study conducted by researchers at the Children's Hospital of Boston (United States) has been quite extensive. They have been based on data from 513,501 pregnant women and 1,164,750 children who have given birth at term, between weeks 37 and 41, excluding mothers with diabetes and babies born with extremely high or low weight.
They have concluded that gaining too much weight in pregnancy is related to a higher weight of the baby at birth, regardless of genetic factors. Sibling cases have been analyzed and the same genetic load has been seen, the greater the mother's weight gain during pregnancy, the greater the baby's weight.
On average, pregnant women increased 13.6 kilograms. 12 percent of mothers gained more than 20 kilos in pregnancy and 12 percent of children were born with a weight equal to or greater than 3.9 kilos.
They found that mothers who gained between 20 and 22 kilos were 1.7 more likely to give birth to an overweight baby compared to those who only gained between 8 and 10 kilos. While those who gained more than 24 kilos multiplied the risk by 2.3 times.
It is believed that overweight in pregnancy affects the uterine environment, causing changes in the hypothalamus, in the islet cells of the pancreas, in fatty cell tissue and in other systems involved in the regulation of body weight.
Hence the importance of maintaining a healthy weight in pregnancy. Balanced feeding during pregnancy is essential for the future health of the baby, both at birth and in the future, since the kilos of more than pregnant women are also related to diseases of the baby in adulthood such as obesity, asthma and cancer.
