BABIES FROM OBESE MOTHERS

BABIES FROM OBESE MOTHERS RISK OXYGEN DEPRIVATION PROBLEMS

Babies of overweight and obese mothers are more likely to have oxygen-deprivation problems at birth, according to a new study. Reuters Health

Image: conceiveeasy.com

NEWBORNS OF HEAVY MOTHERS AT RISK FOR BREATHING PROBLEMS (from an article by KATHRYN DOYLE, NEW YORK, May 20, 2014, cited by Above the Fold, May.21, 2014)

 (Reuters Health) - Babies of overweight and obese mothers are more likely to have oxygen-deprivation problems at birth, according to a new study. The heavier a woman is, the greater the risks to her newborn, researchers found.

“Maternal obesity is associated with a number of complications during pregnancy and delivery, but the underlying mechanism is not fully understood,” said Dr. Marie Blomberg of Linkoping University in Sweden. To learn more, researchers analyzed data from a medical register of all live singleton, term births between 1992 and 2010 in Sweden, which included more than 1.7 million babies. The register had information on women’s height and weight early in pregnancy, as well as babies’ medical problems and so-called Apgar scores.

The Apgar score assesses vitality using measures of heart rate, breathing, muscle tone, skin color and activity on a scale from zero to 10. There can be many reasons for a low Apgar score, but the most common reason is lack of oxygen, lead author Dr. Martina Persson told Reuters Health in an email. Persson worked on the study at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

Compared to babies of normal-weight mothers, babies with overweight mothers were 32 percent more likely to have an Apgar score that low at 10 minutes. Babies of obese mothers were 57 percent more likely to have a low Apgar score, and those of severely obese mothers were 80 percent more likely.

A newborn’s risk of seizures also increased with maternal weight. For instance, babies of severely obese mothers were twice as likely to have a seizure as those of mothers with a healthy weight.

Full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/20/us-pregnancy-obesity-oxygen-idUSKBN0E024120140520