HealthDay News — Children born to mothers who gain either too much or too little weight during their pregnancy are more likely to be overweight or obese, according to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
After looking at medical records of children aged 2 to 5 years born to more than 4,100 patients in California, Sneha B. Sridhar, MPH and colleagues found that patients who gained less than the recommended weight during pregnancy were 63% more likely to have an overweight or obese child.
More than 20% of children aged 2 to 5 years whose mothers gained more than the recommended amount of weight during pregnancy were overweight or obese, compared with 14.5% of those whose mothers gained weight within the recommended guidelines.
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The risk of having an overweight or obese child was 80% higher among patients who gained more than the recommended amount of weight during their pregnancy.
“Gestational weight gain had a greater impact on childhood overweight/obesity among normal-weight women, suggesting that the effect may be independent of genetic predictors of obesity,” wrote the researchers.
