New Weight-Gain Findings for Severely Obese Pregnant Women

According to a recent study, women who are extremely obese may not need to gain as much weight as current guidelines recommend for a healthy pregnancy and newborn.

The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, found that severely obese women who gained a lesser amount weight than recommended by the Institute of Medicine during their last two trimesters had no added risks.

Researchers also found, however, that pregnant women who were obese, overweight, normal weight or underweight did suffer problems when less weight was gained than guidelines advise. One risk of gaining less than the recommended amount of weight for women in these groups included giving birth to newborn that are undersized for their gestational age.

Alternatively, the study found that women in all categories who gained an excessive amount of weight in their second and third trimesters had a higher incidence of babies that were big for gestational age. Overweight women who gained more weight than recommended were also more likely to develop gestational diabetes, as well as deliver via induced labor and/or cesarean section.

Researchers included almost 74,000 women who gave birth to a single baby to arrive at their findings, which were presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s annual meeting. Of the women, 5 percent were morbidly obese, 6 percent were severely obese, 13 percent were obese, 24 percent were overweight, 48 percent were normal weight and 4 percent were underweight.

The findings imply that recommendations for necessary weight gain for obese pregnant women should be lowered to prevent possible complications.

Some complications during labor and delivery can cause serious harm or death. If your child has suffered a birth injury that may have been preventable, please call or e-mail the medical malpractice attorneys at Silberstein, Awad & Miklos, P.C. today for your free consultation. One of our experienced birth injury lawyers will evaluate your case and answer your questions.

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