Obesity increases health complications during pregnancy, including miscarriage, premature birth and preeclampsia. Researchers have now found that being overweight during pregnancy increases these risks, regardless of the country in which a woman was born.
New research from researchers at Linköping University and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden examined the risk of complications faced by overweight pregnant women, both those born in Sweden and those who moved to Sweden.
“We know that overweight and obesity are associated with many complications during pregnancy and childbirth in women born in Sweden. Therefore, we wanted to investigate whether inequalities in pregnancy complications between women born in different countries could be linked to some physical Differences to explain If you know health inequalities exist, you'll want to find out why so you can take next steps to address them. Press release.
Researchers evaluated nearly 2 million pregnancies and focused on eight major complications that can affect mothers or babies during pregnancy and delivery. Comorbidities examined included those related to pregnancy, including preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and infant mortality in the first year of life. It also looked at preterm birth, extremely preterm birth and low Apgar scores, which assess newborn vitality. The researchers also considered the risk of having a larger or smaller baby in relation to the length of pregnancy.
this Discover The article, published in The Lancet Public Health, shows that promoting a healthy weight has the potential to prevent pregnancy complications in all women.
Researchers explore how many pregnancy complications, such as gestational diabetes, could be prevented if all women started pregnancy at a normal weight.
“For example, we concluded that about half of gestational diabetes cases are preventable. This applies to women born in Sweden as well as women born abroad,” said Maryam Shirvanifar, first author of the study.
Research also shows that the impact of weight on these complications varies widely. For example, being overweight is particularly associated with an increased risk of gestational diabetes compared with other pregnancy-related problems.