- Doctors may have underestimated the threat posed to unborn
babies if their mothers are overweight, according to new research.
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- A study of more than 2,000 children born to mothers suffering
from pregnancy-related diabetes found that the level of obesity was the
"main predicating factor" for defects of the heart, kidney and
urinary tract.
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- The researchers, at the Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona,
said women should be aware how their weight could affect their unborn child.
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- Doctors have known since the 1960s that women with diabetes
before pregnancy have a higher-than-normal risk of giving birth to babies
with congenital abnormalities.
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- High blood sugar levels passing through the placenta
to the developing baby are known to cause defects in the crucial early
few weeks while organs are forming.
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- In women with "gestational diabetes" - the
variety of the disease that usually appears in the second half of pregnancy
- the risk of birth defects was thought to be less serious.
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- A team led by Dr Rosa Corcoy studied the links between
the blood sugar levels of 2,060 mothers with gestational diabetes and defects
in their babies. They expected to find a strong link between the severity
of the diabetes and damage to the babies.
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- But instead they found the mother's degree of obesity
was the most important influence on birth defects.
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- "We found that obesity was the main predictor for
congenital abnormalities in the babies," said Dr Corcoy. "It
was most commonly linked to defects of the heart."
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- The findings are published in the journal Diabetologia.
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- One explanation for the link is that obesity is an indicator
of energy and nutrients available to a baby in the womb. The excess of
these nutrients, and not the excess of blood sugar, may be connected to
malformations.
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- Dr Corcoy said women planning a family should consider
their weight and its possible effects. But she added that it was not advisable
for a woman to lose weight quickly before pregnancy.
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