Strollerderby : low birth weight

They Say: Breastmilk Fights Respiratory Viruses Better in Girls

Miriam Axel-Lute — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Science gets particularly exciting when it turns up things no one was expecting. Researcher Fernando Polack, working in Buenos Aires investigating how much protection breastmilk provides for very-low-birthweight babies against the wicked metapneumovirus (no vaccine yet developed), was surprised to find stark gender differences in his results:

Girls who were not breastfed had a much higher risk of rehospitalization for respiratory illness than boys, but breastfed girls were almost never rehospitalized. In boys, the difference between breastfed and not was insignificant. (The researchers hasten to point out that there are plenty of other benefits of breastfeeding that still hold true for boys.)

The fascinating part of this is that a gender difference may point to breastmilk's protective properties working differently than previously supposed. Maybe it's not just delivering mom's immunities until the kid gets its own—why would there be a gender difference in that? Could breastmilk prompt anti-viral protection in the absence of exposure to viruses somehow, interacting directly with the baby's developing immune system? (Of course, why would there be a gender difference in that either?) The report from Vanderbilt Medical Center speculates maybe, though they have no idea how.

Sounds to me for now like another thing to throw on the "we don't know what breastmilk is well enough to replicate it" evidence pile.

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Low Birth Weight Babies, Especially Girls, Likely to Develop Autism

Cole Gamble — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:05:00 GMT

The possible causes for autism grew by one today as new research finds babies born before term, underweight and especially female are twice as likely to develop autism… This is according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although it is not understood what this link means, experts say it is further prompting for pregnant women to seek prenatal care. Currently one in every 150 children in the US is autistic and 1 in every 8 children is born premature.

Smaller Babies = Depressed Adults?

Karen Murphy — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:08:00 GMT

Great. As skeptical as I am about the-sky-is-falling studies, especially the ones about our kids and how horrible their lives are going to be because of some trait they have, I almost have to give some credence to this one: smaller babies tend to have more problems with depression later in life than bigger babies. Almost.

My biggest baby was just over 7 pounds at birth. Just great. "Okay kids, you're doomed to a life of depression, get used to it now!" I weighed 5-pounds something. Uh huh.

This theory is all part of a 40-year study in which some 4600 Britons, all born in 1946, were studied. Their birth data was analyzed and their lives were tracked in terms of depression and anxiety, and in general it was noted that the lower the birth weight, the more depressive episodes they had and the more likelihood of repeated episodes. Conversely, as birth weight went up, there were fewer occasions of depression.

In addition, birth weight seemed to affect the timeline of reaching developmental milestones: babies weighing less took longer, in general, to reach typical milestones.

So hello, guilt? Obviously there are huge swaths of exceptions here, but the conjecture is that stressed-out moms transfer stress hormones to their babies in utero and that this depresses growth as well as sets Baby up for a life of misery.

My family seems to be moving into this trend: not only were all my kids on the smaller side at birth, but they're emotionally and energetically sensitive, traits that seem to lend themselves to what's perceived as depression.

Now, I'd like to point out that the people who were studied all were born in postwar England, which likely meant that there was a fair bit of stress happening during pregancy as a result of various deprivations, fears, etc that were a part of the wartime and postwar experiences that would have been a part of those pregnancies. So I find that significant and a possible explanation for some of the depression experienced by those babies as they grew up and lived their lives. It would be interesting to compare this data with just as widespread and comprehensive study started a few years later.

So maybe it's not time to hand your small-at-birth kid a bottle of Prozac just yet.

Photo: Reuters

Fat and Pregnant? Lose Weight

Madeline Holler — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:35:00 GMT

Hold on to your cupcakes, big pregnant girls. A study that says fat women who gain little or no weight during pregnancy have better births is coming to an OB near you.

As if standing on the scale at each appointment isn’t tense enough, now the biggest of women will have to sit through a weight-loss lecture while suffering first-trimester nausea. Ugh.

A new study looked at 120,000 birth certificates in Missouri and divided obese moms into three categories from heavy to heaviest. In the least-heavy group, outcomes were best when the moms gained between 10 and 25 pounds. The middle group did best gaining zero to 10 pounds. The heaviest did best if they lost weight from conception to birth.

But what does “best outcomes” mean?

Well, when the least-heavy obese women lost weight, or when the heaviest obese women gained weight, they were found to have an increased risk of low birth-weight babies. Good to know. When the obese women gained little or no weight, or lost weight, they were shown to be at a lower risk for developing high blood pressure. Great.

All these obese women who gained/lost “optimally” also had a lower risk for delivery by cesarean section, the study concludes. Hmmm. This is where we need more information.

I’m sure the report is an accurate description of what happened – that the obese women in the study who gained too many pounds underwent more c-sections. The evidence I would like to see, though, is whether those c-sections were actually required. Overweight and obese women have long claimed there is a bias against them the medical community and that many doctors assume from the beginning that they will need a c-section. There is also some evidence that obese women have slightly longer labors, which might be another reason they wind up in surgery at almost twice the rate as the general pregnant population.

I can accept that there are increased health risks for overweight and obese people, particularly for hypertension and diabetes. But I also recognize the Western world equates right-sized bodies (especially those of women) with a sense of control and strength and priority that bumps up against a person’s morality. The last thing we want, especially from our mothers, is any hint of a loss of control, vulnerability, or moral weakness.

Doctors and nurses are people too, and any prejudices they may have against fat people outside of work get taken into work with them too. So was a vaginal delivery an obese Missouri mom’s reward for losing weight instead of gaining it? Was a c-section her fat friend’s punishment for letting herself go even more? If lower c-section rates are an argument for new weight-gain guidelines, I'd like to see strong arguments for sending the obese women into the OR in the first place. Being fat isn't a medical indication for c-section.

In my civilian life, I fall in the normal to just the other side of overweight gray area of the BMI charts. On my two tours of pregnancy duty, I gained more than 40 pounds, an amount the recommendations coming out of this study reserves only for the bird-boned and lithe (which I am not -- I am all muscle mass and excess emotional baggage). Neither of my caregivers showed concern during any of my weigh-ins and I felt good during all nine months both times. I can’t imagine being told to limit my weight gain to 15 or even 25 pounds, especially before taking my blood pressure and questioning my level of physical activity. I think I gained 15 pounds the minute I conceived.

How much did you or your partner gain during pregnancy? Anybody feel harassed by a doctor or midwife over weight gain or about being fat to begin with? Can you imagine anything more frustrating than being told to lose weight during pregnancy, especially if you’re feeling pretty good (and hungry)?