Pregnant women: Don’t get too fat, please
Well, it seems that female fatness is the topic du jour, as we have some further information on the non-genetic hereditary aspects of obesity.
Followers of science will remember some recent breakthroughs that claimed firstly that obesity and overweight weren’t so much chromosomal traits inherited irrespective of the environment, but that the tendency to become fat was passed from mother to fetus epigenetically.
Epigenetics refers to changes in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. To put it very briefly indeed, this usually means changes in the way the strand of DNA is wrapped up. So, the same DNA bundled up in a different way can lead to differences in how it behaves. It’s a bit like how identical twins are never quite identical, despite sharing the same genome.
Anyway, the point is that this epigenetic information is not set in stone – it can be modified as a result of changes in the cellular environment. Here, this means differences in the abundance of food.
Which then brings us to this latest press release, “Gaining too much weight during pregnancy nearly doubles risk of having a heavy baby”, which talks about a study of more than 40,000 women and their babies. Of these, those who gained more than 40 pounds (18 kilograms) during their pregnancy were twice as likely to have a BIG ASS BABY.
Surprisingly, one in five women subject themselves to this kind of weight gain. This is bad for a number of reasons.
- Through the aforementioned process of epigenetic remodelling, this predisposes the big ass baby to remaining bigass its entire life (I mean ‘fat’)
- A big baby also poses serious risks for both mom and baby at birth–for mothers, vaginal tearing, bleeding, and often C-sections, and for the babies, stuck shoulders and broken collar bones.” – Teresa Hillier, MD
- “From a practical standpoint, women who gain too much weight during pregnancy can have a very difficult time losing the weight after the baby is born.” – Kim Vesco, MD
So, there you go. Three great reasons why you should avoid gaining too much weight during pregnancy. As for what is a reasonable amount of weight to gain, I’m not an obstetrician, so I can’t tell you, but intuitively one would expect that one should satisfy their hunger, but not to the point where one’s body fat percentage starts to get out of control.
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