Dangers for children of Women who are obese

February 11, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under: Baby Health, News, Pregnancy

A new study has shown that women who are obese are more likely to have children with birth defects than slim mothers. Defects including the child’s heart and spina bifida. An estimated one in six pregnant women in Britain is now obese or overweight.

The Government was asked by experts to fund anti-obesity campaigns, targeting all women within an age range and for doctors to be educated about potential complications obese and overweight expectant mothers can expect.

Newcastle University researchers discovered that babies born to obese mothers were significantly more likely to suffer from abnormalities. More than twice as likely to be born with spina bifida, in which the spinal cord is incomplete, causing disability. 20 per cent more likely to be born with a cleft palate and 30 per cent more likely to have heart defects.

Dr Emily Gelson, from Imperial College, London said: “Increasing numbers of deaths are occurring in women with unknown heart disease but with known risk factors. The presence of these risk factors must be highlighted during pregnancy, promoting the timely diagnosis of unsuspected (heart) disease in pregnant women.”

“Only by raising the profession’s awareness of the possibility of heart disease in pregnant women will this alarming rise in the maternal mortality rate be arrested, and preferably, reversed.” She co-authored the report.