Simple Measures May Curb Excessive Weight Gain in Pregnancy

HealthDay – 1 hr 23 mins ago FRIDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Healthy eating and low or moderate levels of exercise during pregnancy can help a woman avoid excessive weight gain and may reduce her infant's risk of being overweight or obese later in life, new research indicates.

The study included 49 women at 16 to 20 weeks of pregnancy who were assigned to either a low- or moderate-intensity walking program. Both groups also followed a meal plan based on guidelines given to expectant mothers with gestational diabetes.

The women were compared with another group of pregnant women who were not assigned to any exercise or diet programs (the "control" group).

All the women in the study were deemed to have a normal, healthy weight before their pregnancy, the researchers noted in the report, which was published in the August issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

Compared to the women in the control group, those in the two exercise/healthy-eating groups gained less weight during pregnancy and were less likely to gain excessive weight, the investigators found. Within two months of delivery, 28 percent of women in the moderate-intensity exercise program were within about 4.4 pounds of their pre-pregnancy weight, compared with 7 percent of those in the control group.

Babies born to women in all the groups had similar birth weights, which suggests that preventing excessive weight gain during pregnancy does not influence infant birth weight, the study authors noted in a news release from the American College of Sports Medicine.

The researchers pointed out, however, that pregnancy is an important period in determining a child's health later in life and preventing excessive weight gain in pregnancy may reduce a child's long-term risk for obesity.

"Women benefit greatly from being active throughout their pregnancies and physical activity is strongly recommended by professional organizations," lead author Stephanie-May Ruchat, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, said in the news release. "However, most pregnant women remain inactive and this may be contributing to excessive gestational weight gain, which is associated with an increased risk for future obesity in both the mother and offspring."

"Myths about nutrition in pregnancy can also be misleading. For example, mothers-to-be should be warned that 'eating for two' does not mean they need to eat twice as much, but that they should eat twice as healthy," Ruchat noted. "An increase of only 200 to 500 kilocalories per day in the second and third trimester is recommended, depending on the body-mass index of the women prior to pregnancy. The heavier the woman is, the fewer extra calories per day she will need during pregnancy."

Before beginning any new diet or exercise regimen, experts recommend discussing it with your doctor or other health professional.

More information

The Nemours Foundation offers tips for staying healthy during pregnancy.

View the Original article

Excessive weight gain during pregnancy a predictor for above-average birth weight

ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2012) — One out of every two women of reproductive age is overweight or obese. Researchers from the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute, from the University of Ottawa (faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences) and from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute set out to discover if overweight or obese women are in fact more likely to give birth to above average weight babies, as reported in the Journal of Maternal Fetal and Neonatal Medicine.

See Also:Health & MedicineObesityDiet and Weight LossPregnancy and ChildbirthInfant's HealthFitnessDiseases and ConditionsReferenceBody mass indexBirth weightNutrition and pregnancyOverweight

"Obesity can become part of an intergenerational cycle," said Dr. Kristi Adamo, co-author of this report and co-founder of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity (HALO) Research Group at the CHEO Research Institute. "Birth weight averages can be an indicator of the weight a child will carry through preschool and even into adulthood. It's critical for a mother to understand that her healthy eating and lifestyle decisions during pregnancy will impact much more than a nine-month gestation period."

To investigate this issue in more detail, Dr. Adamo and her colleagues examined data from more than 4,000 mother and baby pairs cared for at The Ottawa Hospital and the Kingston General Hospital between 2002 and 2009. They found that excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) can be just as problematic as pre-pregnancy overweight and obesity. In fact, the study indicated that independent of pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), mothers who exceeded GWG recommendations specific to their pre-pregnancy BMI significantly increased the likelihood that their child would be born larger than average for gestational age (i.e. above the 90th percentile of infant weight for gestational age.)

"It doesn't matter if you're categorized as normal weight, overweight or obese during pre-pregnancy -- exceeding the 2009 Institute of Medicine GWG targets seems to have a growth promoting effect on the fetus," explained the co-author Zach Ferraro, a PhD student in Dr. Adamo's lab and in the Human Kinetics doctoral program at the University of Ottawa. He is co-supervised by Dr. Denis Prud'homme, co-author of this report and dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences. "Unfortunately, delivering a large baby increases the risk for many delivery-related complications in both mom and baby. But the takeaway here is that GWG is a modifiable risk factor that can and must be addressed during prenatal visits for all women!"

The data for this study was obtained from the Ottawa and Kingston (OaK) Birth Cohort, developed by Drs. Mark Walker, Shi Wu Wen and Marc Rodger of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa. The study was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Ontario Women's Health Council, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

View the Original article