The link between healthy maternal weight and healthy pregnancy is well established, but new research has shown another good reason to keep your BMI at 25 or below when you’re getting ready to have a baby. Swedish researchers have found a link between high BMI and the risk of a child being born with birth defects. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that the heavier the mother during early pregnancy, the higher the risk of having a child with birth defects.
Out of 1,243,957 infants included in the study, 43,550 (3.5%) were born with major birth defects, including heart defects and malformations of genital organs and limbs. Compared with women of a healthy weight, the risk of a major birth defect was found to increase with maternal BMI by 5% for overweight mothers, 12% for those at the lower end of the obesity scale and 37% for those severely obese.
Researchers say this progressive increase in maternal obesity “underlines the importance of having a maternal BMI in the normal range before pregnancy” and “efforts should be made to encourage women of reproductive age to adopt a healthy lifestyle and to obtain a normal body weight before conception.”