Pregnant women who are overweight are more likely to lose their baby, warn researchers.
A new research review shows women with a higher body mass index (BMI) before or in early pregnancy have a higher risk of the baby dying in pregnancy or labour, including stillbirth, and shortly after birth.
Severely obese women run the greatest risk – more than three times higher than women with the healthiest weight, say Imperial College London researchers.
But the risk starts to rise even when women are slightly overweight, according to a review of 38 studies.
Every day 17 babies in Britain die just before, during or soon after birth amounting to 6,500 babies a year.
NHS figures show that each day there are 11 stillbirths where a baby is born dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy – making stillbirth 15 times more common than cot death.
There are around 4,000 stillbirths every year in the UK and one in every 200 births ends in a stillbirth.
Around 15 per cent of British mothers are obese when expecting a child – up from seven per cent 20 years ago, according to latest figures.
Doctors have warned the obesity epidemic among pregnant women is an ever-growing burden on the NHS and could jeopardise the health of the next generation.
Complications suffered by obese women in pregnancy range from diabetes to life-threatening pre-eclampsia, while babies born to fat women are at greater risk of diabetes and obesity themselves in later life.
MP Anna Soubry, while public health minister last year, said it was ‘absolutely bonkers’ that midwives were no longer routinely weighing pregnant women.
In the new review, lead researcher Dr Dagfinn Aune investigated the link between maternal weight and baby and infant deaths.
Altogether 38 studies included more than 10,147 foetal deaths, more than 16,274 stillbirths, more than 4,311 perinatal deaths, 11,294 neonatal deaths, and 4,983 infant deaths.
Doctors use Body Mass Index (BMI) to assess whether patients are overweight by comparing height to weight, in a calculation which divides weight in kilos by height in metres squared.
A BMI of 20 to 24.9 is healthy, while 25 to 29.9 is overweight and 30-plus is obese. BMI of 40 plus is super-obese.
The researchers found even ‘modest increases’ in maternal BMI were associated with increased risk of the baby dying in pregnancy or labour, stillbirth, or death shortly after birth.
The risk for super-obese women with a BMI of 40 was between two and 3.5-fold higher compared to women with a BMI of 20.
But the rate of stillbirth per 10,000 pregnancies was 20 per cent higher for overweight women, and 50 per cent higher for obese women, says the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr Aune said: ‘Weight management guidelines for women who plan pregnancies should take these findings into consideration to reduce the burden of foetal deaths, stillbirths, and infant deaths.’
Experts said the findings show the importance of being ‘fit for pregnancy’ and healthy eating while pregnant, but stressed dieting was never recommended.
In the UK, there are no specific recommendations for how much weight a woman should put on during pregnancy.
Experts do not recommend weight loss in pregnancy, but advise bigger mums to keep their weight stable and aim to gain around 22lbs or 10kg only.
A woman’s weight is currently only recorded when she goes for her first antenatal check, with more regular checks abandoned in the 1990s.
NHS guidance tells women that during the first six months of pregnancy energy needs do not change, so no extra food is needed, while only 200 calories more a day is needed in the later stages.
Source: Daily Mail