Home »  Gaining Weight during Pregnancy in Obese Women Might Reap Adverse Consequences Current studies have made it clear that one of the general guidelines on pregnancy is highly inappropriate. Since a long time, its been believed that it is a good thing to gain about 26-35 pounds of weight, when you are pregnant, as this helps in improving the condition during pregnancy and prevents the pregnancy to end up in fatal consequences. This fact has been acknowledged by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists or ACOG and is been followed for quite some time. The recent publication of a revised set of guidelines by Institute of Medicine (IOM) have pointed out that if the mother is over weight, then she can gain at least 15 pounds during her pregnancy. This is although not correct as researches have evidenced that gaining weight during pregnancy in obese women might reap adverse consequences.

Recently, studies have revealed a different picture altogether and reflected that gaining weight during pregnancy in obese women might reap adverse consequences. The aim of the research was to find out the consequences during maternity for the women suffering from obesity. The study and the analysis were undertaken at different hospitals and about 232 women were been involved in it.

They were all pregnant and were obese having the body mass index ranging to 30 and above. Half of the women followed the conventional nutritional chart, the guidelines and the traditional norms, whereas, the rest were placed on a well monitored and balanced program. An essential food diary was maintained for each of them. The former group was named as control group while the later one was named as the study group.

After sometime it is been seen that the women from the control group gained about 31 pounds on an average and the women from the study group gained about 11 pounds on an average. Its been also noticed that twenty-three women, who were extremely obese lost weight to a great level during the time.

The important findings from the analysis have been that, in the study group absolutely no death of fetus could be noticed, neither, there had been infants, whose growth rate has got restricted, there were also few babies, whose weight is more than 10 pounds.

The scenario is different in the control group. Another significant finding in the study group was that, there had been less case of caesarean deliveries and gestational diabetes within the group. This in turn proved that gaining weight during pregnancy in obese women might reap adverse consequences.

The essential inference from the analysis is that if a woman is obese, then at no instance she should gain weight during pregnancy and should be kept under a healthy and balanced program of nutrition and should be monitored at all level. This will help in preventing the adverse effects. Therefore being healthy should be the major look out and not gaining weight should be the concern. Another basic reason for not gaining weight during pregnancy is that, it is really difficult to return to the normal shape after delivery. So retain your normal weight during pregnancy, both for you and your baby.