This month the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published a study that found a direct link between maternal weight gain during pregnancy and overweight children.
The study involved nearly 1500 child-parent pairs and followed maternal weight gain during the pregnancy and childhood weight up to age 3. The mothers weight gain was assessed as low, adequate, or excessive according to the Institute of Medicine's guidelines set in 1990.
The IOM's guidelines list safe weight gains for pregnant women based on their pre-pregnancy BMI. Most women should gain between 25 and 40 pounds. More if they started out underweight and less of they started out overweight.
After careful analysis of maternal weight gain and the incidence of overweight three year olds the authors concluded that perhaps women are allowed to gain too much weight. Of all the mother-child pairs only 14 percent had inadequate weight gain, while 51 percent had excessive weight gain.
Children were four times more likely to be overweight at three years of age if their mothers had excessive weight gain, but also if the weight gain fell in the adequate, accepted values for pregnancy as established by the IOM.
So are women really gaining too much weight? And is this a true cause of childhood obesity?
What the study failed to asses was diet. It could be said that women who gain more during pregnancy have poor diets and their children go on to eat that harmful diet, which leads to excessive weight gain.
The study population was also relatively small for such a broad reaching conclusion and larger studies may be necessary to prove or disprove this link.
Posted by Dr. Christina Gutierrez on April 4, 2007 04:32 PM
