(16-02-09) Obese moms' kids at higher risk of birth defects

By Rita Rubin, USA TODAY

Women who are obese when they conceive have an increased risk of delivering babies with birth defects, a report suggests today.
The report, a review of 39 studies, found that obese women's babies were more than twice as likely to have spina bifida, a failure of the spine to close during early pregnancy.
The extra number of cases in obese women vs. normal-weight women was small, about one in 2,000 births.

BETTER LIFE: Mom's obesity tied to infant mortality
Obese women's risk of having babies with heart defects, cleft palates, hydrocephaly ? a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain ? and other birth defects also increased, but not as much as that of spina bifida.

Obesity is a body mass index, or BMI, of 30 or more. BMI is calculated using weight and height. A 5-foot-4-inch woman at 174 pounds has a BMI of 30. In 2004, a third of U.S. women 15 and older were obese, the authors write in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Women with a BMI of 25 ? 145 pounds for that 5-foot-4 woman ? up to 29.9 are considered overweight, but the new analysis did not link that weight range and a higher risk of birth defects.

"That's not necessarily because overweight doesn't have a risk attached to it," but studies to answer that question haven't been done, says co-author Judith Rankin, an epidemiologist at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. Rankin and her co-authors came up with possible explanations for the link between obesity at conception and a higher risk of birth defects:

?Obesity is a strong risk factor for type 2 diabetes, and diabetes in pregnant women is an established risk factor for birth defects, especially of the central nervous system and the heart.

?Performing ultrasounds of obese pregnant women is more difficult, so
perhaps they might not terminate pregnancies because of fetal defects as often as thinner women.

?Research has found an association between maternal obesity and nutritional deficiencies, specifically reduced folate levels. Women of
childbearing age are advised to take 400 micrograms of folic acid a day to protect against spina bifida, but maybe that's not enough if they're obese, Rankin says.

But James Mills, senior investigator in the epidemiology branch
at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, says there's no evidence that bigger doses of folic acid for obese women would help.

Back in 1994, Mills co-wrote the first study to link obesity in pregnancy to birth defects. It found that obese women were 2? times more
likely to have a baby with spina bifida than normal-weight women, fairly consistent with Rankin's finding.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-02-10-obese-moms_N.htm

Source: NaturalNews

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