New Weight Guidelines for Pregnant Women
First update in almost 20 years
With the rise in obesity among women of childbearing age, along with the new found issues related to obesity during pregnancy, has prompted the Institute of Medicine to update it's recommendations for weight gain (and exercise) during pregnancy.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM), the nation's most influential
medical advisory group, has updated its guidelines for weight gain
during pregnancy for the first time since 1990.
The revised recommendations, released May 28, which also include the
first advice regarding exercise during pregnancy, reflect new data on
prenatal health as well as several recent shifts in the obstetric
landscape — pregnant women in the U.S. are now older, more likely to
deliver multiple births and ethnically more diverse than they were 20
or 30 years ago. But far and away, the IOM's greatest new concern is
the increased population of overweight and obese mothers-to-be. (Watch TIME's video "How to Lose Hundreds of Pounds.")
For centuries, one of the greatest dangers pregnant women faced was
not gaining enough weight to adequately nourish a healthy baby. To
protect against malnutrition and, in some cases, a strong societal
pressure to stay thin, doctors — and grandmothers — everywhere
routinely urged expecting mothers to eat, eat, eat.
Times have changed. Today, nearly two-thirds of American women of
childbearing age are overweight, and one-third qualify as obese. An
abundance of research suggests that weight gain before and during
pregnancy increases the risk of several serious health complications
for both mother and child, including diabetes, hypertension and birth
defects.
via Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1901441,00.html?xid=rss-t...
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