Healthy pregnancy and BMI
Getting to grips with how to have a healthy pregnancy can be fraught with misinformation and ‘old wives’ tales, and it has long been theorised that women who are overweight during pregnancy will increase their child’s propensity for also being overweight.
However, research carried out by the University of Bristol and Imperial College London has revealed that the high Body Mass Index (BMI) of a mother is less likely to have an impact on her child’s predisposition for obesity than previously thought.
Using two longitudinal studies, which followed specific groups of subjects over a period of time to monitor risk factors and health outcomes, the researchers found that lifestyle factors played a greater role in childhood and teenage obesity than the mother’s BMI before and during pregnancy.
The research has now been published in the journal BMC Medicine and provides much-needed clarity regarding the issue.
Results showed that while there is a link between maternal BMI and the birth weight of a baby, this link is nullified as the child grows.
Lead author Dr Tom Bond, Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol said that the research team “found that if women are heavier at the start of pregnancy this isn’t a strong cause of their children being heavier as teenagers”.
He stressed the importance of this information and noted that women and men of all ages need support to maintain a healthy weight, adding that it is not sufficient to focus upon pregnant women, or those women thinking about pregnancy.
Dr Bond acknowledged that despite this research into the link between high BMI in pregnant mothers and the childhood weight of their babies, there is also “good evidence that maternal obesity causes other health problems for mothers and babies”.
So, prospective mothers and pregnant women should be actively encouraged to maintain a healthy weight for the overall health of both mother and child.
Dr Bond stressed the importance of broadening the research to investigate other types of lifestyle choices taken by mothers and fathers during pregnancy to see how they affect childhood weight.
In her My BabyManual article “Pregnancy care for women who are overweight or obese”, Dr Diane Farrar explains the risks of being overweight and pregnant, including how obese women are at greater risk of suffering a miscarriage, stillbirth, high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, and more.
Further reading: Food security study reveals counterintuitive infant obesity findings