Alarming Number of Overweight Pregnant Women

Recent US official report suggested that pregnancy weight gain continues to rise especially in the United States. Less than half of the women who are pregnant have healthy weight before conception. This is an alarming trend that threatens the health of mothers who are pregnant as well as their babies.

Dr. Jennifer Wu from the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York says that the American population continues to increase and in the same way there are an increased number of women who are starting their pregnancy at an unhealthy weight. The health consequences of being overweight during pregnancy will not end when the pregnancy ends as many thinks.

Why is it Alarming?

One of the worst things about this is that most of the pregnant women will continue to get too much weight during pregnancy and will not be able to lose weight after giving birth. This is the main reason why there needs to be an intervention before they conceive as suggested by Women’s Health Expert.

Screening the Body Mass Index is important because it helps optimize weight before pregnancy begins. This is one of the key issues that should be put into place in order to reverse this trend; this is according to Dr. Rabin, the chief in the division of ambulatory care and adults CPR at Women’s Health Program-PCAP Services.

What Need To Be Done To Deal With Overweight During Pregnancy?

Having good weight before conception is very important to women’s medical health and this will begin to make a difference, added Dr. Rabin. According to the CDC report, the percentage of women who become overweight or obese at the start of their pregnancy increased by 8% between the year 2011 and 2015. Consequently, the overweight rate also increased by 2% during conception.

When you take care of yourself before conception and during pregnancy means that you will have a healthy baby. Screening the women’s body mass index during their clinical care offers an opportunity to promote normal and healthy weight before they enter pregnancy period. This statement was given by the researcher Nicolas Deputy, who is a representative at the CDC’s Reproductive Health Division.

What Are The Actions Being Taken To Rectify The Situation?

Researchers aim at getting 58% of human starting a normal pregnancy by 2020 from 52% in 2007. Being overweight increases chances of getting a C-section delivery. This is according to the high rate of the surgical procedures that have already raised concern in the United States. Too much weight can also lead to overweight infants and childhood obesity. The opposite is also true that being underweight before pregnancy is also risky because it increases the chances of you getting smaller baby at birth.

Some of the states in the United States had concerns about both underweight and overweight issues in women. The researchers insisted on the counseling treatment during pre-pregnancy health care. To come up with this report, researchers used 2011 to the year 2015 raw data from the National Vital Statistics Systems. This analysis included 48 states in the US. They concluded that there needs to be an intervention before women get pregnant to reduce cases of obesity and overweight.