A new study looking at data from dozens of earlier research efforts has concluded that women who are obese cduring pregnancy are more likely to give birth to children with birth defects, in particular spina bifida and other neural tube defects. Other problems, such as hydrocephaly, cleft palate, and some heart and limb anomalies, are also found at higher rates when children are born to mothers who were obese during pregnancy.
The rate of spina bifida was strikingly higher in these cases, with obese mothers 2.2 times more likely to have a child with that condition; spina bifida ranges in severity but can cause paralysis, incontinence, and other serious medical challenges.
The paper, which appeared this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at the results of 39 previous studies and was authored by Judith Rankin, a researcher at the Institute of Health and Society at Newcastle University in the UK. Rankin told the New York Times that she and her co-authors had also found increased risk to the children of mothers who were classified as overweight, rather than obese, but that further research was needed.
Pregnant women and women planning to become pregnant are routinely advised to take folic acid to lower the risk of neural tube defects, but some doctors now suggest a link between those defects and insulin resistance and undiagnosed diabetes.
Whatever the precise mechanism, the message is pretty clear -- losing weight before conceiving is in the best interest of your future child. How that advice is played out in doctor's offices and homes is another story entirely -- we live in a time and place of mixed messages about weight and health, in which we are bombarded with advertisements for unhealthy food and at the same time urged to lose weight at all costs (and often merely to look good, rather than to improve health). I hope that studies like this can help shine a clear light onto what really matters -- women's health and healthy babies.
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