Obese women who become pregnant are more likely to give birth to babies with deformities

Birth defects more common with fat mothers - Telegraph

Extract:

"Obese women who become pregnant are more likely to give birth to babies with deformities, new research has shown.

Seven of the 16 most common birth defects occurred in babies born to women who were obese or overweight before they conceived, according to an American study published yesterday.

The results are worrying as Britain’s obesity epidemic continues to grow. One quarter of women are currently classed as obese and this is expected to rise over the next five years.

Overweight and obese women are known to be at risk of infertility, complications during pregnancy and high blood pressure as well as chronic diseases such as diabetes.

A team at the University of Texas, in Houston, interviewed 10,249 women in eight states whose babies were born with birth defects between 1997 and 2002.

The women were contacted between six weeks and 24 months after the baby’s birth and asked for their height and weight before pregnancy and compared them with 4,065 women who had babies without birth defects during the same time period.

Obese women were more likely to have babies suffering from spina bifida, heart defects, malformations connected to the genitals and bowels, missing toes, fingers, arms or legs, a hole in a diaphragm, navel defects and a condition called gastroschisis where organs protrude through the abdominal wall.

The study was published in the August issue of Archives of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
The authors of the research paper said the mechanism which causes the defects to occur more in children of obese women is unknown.

I suspect that one of the causes of the birth defects is likely to be that the obese mother was 'dieting'/'slimming' to try to lose weight or limit weight gain during the pregnancy and that the foetus therefore received inadequate nutrition. - Pregnant women should be told the truth - that the safe, reliable way to limit weight gain during pregnancy is to keep salt intake to a minimum and forget about dieting! - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pregnant_mothers.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
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Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

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http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

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