Helping you to stay fit & healthy
When I have written about conception, pregnancy and birth in the past, I advised women to try to lose a bit of weight before they got pregnant because it is so hard to lose it after the birth.
Now such advice is part of a health initiative because we know overweight women have children prone to getting obesity and diabetes themselves.
They will therefore be asked to lose weight before they become pregnant so their weight is in the normal range before they start trying to conceive, in order to protect the health of their future children.
Previous advice urged expectant mothers not to ‘eat for two’ during pregnancy.
The latest recommendations are the first of their kind to encourage women to lose weight before becoming pregnant.
Almost half of women attending their first GP appointment in pregnancy are too heavy, including one in five who are obese. These mums aren’t
only at higher risk of life-threatening complications in labour, their babies are much more likely to be obese and develop Type 2 diabetes when they grow up.
Being overweight or obese raises the risk of complications to both mother and baby, including blood clots in the legs and lungs, gestational diabetes, high blood pressure and the lifethreatening condition pre-eclampsia,
plus mental health problems. Obese and overweight women are more likely to have a miscarriage, a stillbirth, a premature labour and need an emergency caesarean.
As well as GPS, pharmacists and IVF doctors will be encouraged to offer weight-loss advice to women buying ovulation kits, which tell them their most fertile days of the month.
The Royal College of Obstetricians
and Gynaecologists, which represents 6,000 doctors specialising in childbirth and women’s health, stressed the guidance wasn’t nannying, but rather aimed at empowering women to take charge of their health.
Professor Fiona Denison of Edinburgh University, the lead author of the guidelines, said: “By making healthy changes to their diet and exercise, women who are obese may limit the amount of extra weight they gain during pregnancy.
“Losing weight by dieting or taking weight loss drugs is not recommended as this may harm the health of the unborn baby.”
Dr Daghni Rajasingam, consultant obstetrician at Guy’s and Thomas’s NHS trust in Central London, said: “Around one third of births in the UK are unplanned, so any other contact with health professionals before conception also provides good opportunities to raise awareness of the importance of being a healthy weight before pregnancy.”