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Should Obese Moms Gain Nothing During Pregnancy?
The idea that pregnant women “eat for two” died a long time ago, and women who are overweight have seen their preferred pregnancy weight gain dwindle over the years to a mere 11 to 15 pounds.
But a new study is trying to determine whether obese mothers really need to gain any weight at all.
The Healthy Moms study is a four-year trial that will ask pregnant moms who are also obese to not gain any weight, or at the most put on 3 percent of their body weight. Or, as the New York Times, reports, about five pounds for a 170 pound woman.
Kathleen M. Rasmussen, a professor of nutrition at Cornell, says that while many women stop smoking and drinking after seeing those two pink lines, women who already carry extra weight often continue to gain.
“Pregnancy is what we call a teachable moment, a time when women are willing to make positive behavioral changes, because it’s important for their own health and their babies’ health,” Rasmussen tells the Times.
Most women only need about an extra 300-400 calories a day, and those calories should come from lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains. Not, ahem, late night pints of Ben & Jerry’s Everything But The…. ice cream. Or New York Super Fudge Chunk. Either one seemed to fill the need forme. But is restricting calories during pregnancy safe?
That’s one thing the study won’t actually address. Though the Healthy Moms study will evaluate the pregnancy and delivery, no one will be watching the baby long term to see if there are differences in development later on.
It’s important to remember that this is simply a study, not a new standard for pregnant women who are obese. As always, your OB is your best resource for health information during pregnancy.
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Recall Alert - Roman Shades and Roll-Up Blinds Pose Strangulation Risk | Strollerderby commented on Dec 17 09 at 4:29 pme commented on Dec 16 09 at 8:06 pmUgh. My body type is firmly in the “obese” category and when I was pregnant I watched what I ate very carefully. I knew I was at high risk for gestational diabetes, so I started following the GD diet from the beginning with my midwife’s encouragement. And it was HARD. I went to bed hungry many nights and cried a lot. I still gained about 20 pounds- which all came off within a week of delivering. I CANNOT imagine being pregnant and not gaining any weight. That just seems impossible.
Nicole commented on Dec 17 09 at 12:26 amMy first two kids are 15 months apart so that second pregnancy had the added challenge of a busy toddler to chase around. I lost eight pounds in the sickness of the first trimester and gained those eight back through the rest, ending up at zero gain! I was freaked out and in the 8th month my OB gave me an extra ultrasound to check for size. She was 8 pounds at birth. Pregnancy is my favorite diet! By the way, I went on to have two more kids, but never repeated the performance, but gained about 12 pounds each time, which was fine and easy to lose.
Sara commented on Dec 17 09 at 1:15 amI am a maternity nurse who was right on the cusp of obese when I became pregnant. Thankfully I only gained 15 lbs, had a 7 lb baby and was back to my normal weight after a month. Because of what I see at work I was very afraid of gaining too much weight. Kudos to the first commenter who followed a GD diet for her pregnancy. She did a great service to her health and her baby. It is really hard but we see much less complications with moms who gain less weight when they start out with a high BMI. I have had so many patients who start out with a BMI like mine (about 29) and gain 60 lbs! I have even had patients with normal BMIs who gain 100 lbs. This is really hard on your body and the baby. I see a real change coming from the national organizations where weight gain will become a big focus. Weight is such a taboo but we need to encourage people to eat healthier which will then keep the weight gain down.
Thankfully for a lot of moms breastfeeding is a time you can go a little crazy with calorie intake. Because the calories and fat are leaving you to grow a baby outside your body there is a lot less weight gain!
Andrea commented on Dec 17 09 at 9:48 amI think that what bothers me about studies like this is that they tend to result in protocols, and that it seems that medical professionals in this field tend to follow protocols closely. I have a BMI of 30.1, and I wear a size 6/8– technically obese, but really I’m just muscular and heavy-boned, and I always have been. I’ve had too many doctors tell me I need to lose weight, and then not have a clue where I should lose that weight from. If my OB had bothered me about it during pregnancy, I would have lost it. I’ve always found that the best way to healthy eating is to focus on eating healthy choices, and the junk food choices gradually and easily drop out, and in they end you’re eating a mostly healthy diet with a few not so healthy things that you really really like. I think that there should be more focus on nutrition, and healthy eating, and weight shouldn’t be a major consideration.
sarah commented on Dec 17 09 at 10:19 amI am considered obese and I’ve got to say it’s nearly impossible NOT to gain weight during pregnancy. With both pregnancies I could hardly eat a thing the first trimester and watched what I ate the second 2, trying very hard not to gain a lot, and I still gained 25-30 with each.
Sabrina commented on Dec 17 09 at 11:45 amI’m 5’8″ tall, and at 171 I was “overweight” not “obese” and at that time (5 years ago) they didn’t fuss about my weight gain. I was just a bit over 200lbs when I gave birth to my daughter, late, and she was under 6lbs. I gained about 30lbs. I seriously thought that it was from eating too much, and then got pregnant again 9 months later at 185lbs (still had not lost all that weight), so I tried REALLY hard not to gain. I still ended up gaining 25lbs, putting me up to 210lbs! I lived on rice, salad, chicken breast and skim milk during that pregnancy, and had a 6.5lb baby 3 weeks early. There is NO WAY I could possibly gain nothing during a pregnancy, although I know some women who can get away with it. Now I’m finally a normal BI for the first time since I was a child, and yet, if I was told not to gain during pregnancy, I don’t know how it would be possible. As it is now, in order for me to keep my weight from creeping back up I have to eat a diet that is steadily UNDER 1000 calories and run 3-5 times a week for 30-45 minutes.
anonymous commented on Dec 17 09 at 2:34 pmI think this whole thing is ridiculous. I have had two babies almost 3 years apart, both times weighing between 75-100 lbs more than is my recc. weight, but also standing at about 5’11″. Both times I put on an additional 30-50 lbs, despite working out, doing yoga and staying active (more with the 2nd pregnancy becasue I had a toddler) Both my girls weighed in at over 8lbs. I was never even close to having Gestational Diabetes, or any other problems. Now 11 months post baby #2 I weigh less than I did before #1.
My issue with this study and articles about these things is that not every pregnant woman reading them has access to a caring knowledgeable doctor or midwife. I think that during pregnancy the most important thing is to keep the mom and baby healthy and safe. Telling women to not gain any weight during their pregnancy will not only lead to furthering an already body conscious and diet obsessed society, but can’t be healthy in the long run. Not to mention its not going to work anyway, pregnant women have cravings, and just try to stop them from getting that ice cream…not going to happen. Basically it should be left to your own personal physician to come up with a plan for you. If he/she is worried then he/she should set you up with a nutritionalist.
This is just playing with fire, because when you are pregnant, especially for the first time, you are nervous, you are worried, and you want to do what is right. These articles and studies can also lead women with healthy BMIs to think, well if they can afford not to gain any weight why not me? Its a slippery slope.
Sorry for the rant, it is a touchy subject for me. Also I want to add that my OB was never concerned during either pregnancy, and kindly avoided telling me how much I weighed at each visit. It was unnecessary for me to be obsessed with it.
Amy commented on Jan 06 10 at 10:06 amGained the perfect 26 pounds with the first and lost it, then after #2, 3, 4, 5 I just never got it all off. Was 171 lbs before I got pg with #6…. and was 163 when I delivered her, healthy 7lb12oz. I was 153 when I got pg with #7 and 151 the day she was born, a healthy 8 lbs 3 oz. By the time she was 6 mo old I was back to my ideal weight of 115 and kept it off for years thereafter with my new eating habits.
Girls are 6 and 3 now and developmentally indistinguishable from my “fat pregnancy” kids. If anything they’re probably better off for my having given up meats and dairy and they LOVE having a fit mom.
BostonMom commented on Apr 07 10 at 7:42 pmThe recommendations for weight gain for obese mothers has little to do with long term outcomes and everything to do with tyring to save the lives of mothers and their infants. Women who are obese during pregnancy (on average) are more at risk for a number of serious complications including higher rates of stillbirth and complications during delivery. Delivery complications mean that obese women are MUCH more likely to require a C-Section, and when a doctor has to cut through a significant amount of tissue simply to reach the baby and then operate through what is often a very narrow surgical window, you are much more likely to lose both mother and baby. Most women are lucky and won’t have these complications, but increasing obesity rates mean more and more women and their babies are at risk.
Rivkah commented on Aug 13 10 at 4:10 pmI ate a lot (of healthy foods) when I was pregnant with my son: mostly vegetarian with fish and meat on the weekend. I was 5’8″, 170 when I got pregnant (overweight) and only gained 5 pounds. I delivered a very healthy 21″ 8lb 15oz baby.
I’ve seen so many of my female friends eat fairly healthy main meals, but go nuts on the snacks, using pregnancy almost as an excuse and no one dares to say a word. Really, I think it’s time we take a closer look at what we do to ourselves during pregnancy and perhaps adopt a healthier lifestyle, which we can then continue post-pregnancy. With this obesity epidemic in the US, we cannot ignore this issue.
By the way, my mom didn’t gain any weight with her three kids. She’s 5′ and her weight ranged from 90-120 pounds (three girls over 11 years). None of us were under 9 pounds, and all of us were healthy!
Preggo & Educated commented on Sep 27 11 at 9:41 pmI am sadly the first pregnant woman I’ve personally known to start at a healthy weight, and unfortunately everyone is still appeassing overweight women’s eating habits with the eating for two excuse. So my claims that the women I’ve known should drastically change their diets and not gain the same as average weight women for their and the baby’s health have been seen as mean. Finally being pregnant myself I have gained the verification I needed from the high-risk doctors I see. They, too, operate on the medical needs of the fetus, and the women they see haven’t gotten to the size they are by consuming the recommended caloric intake. With extremely few exceptions, these women are already consuming enough for them and a baby so it can often be safer for these moms to even lose weight by changing their diet and increasing activity. People need to stop accepting obesity and treat it like the curable disease that it is. By the way, all of these women I’ve known have gained at least the socially accepted 30 lbs at the risk of their baby. No one should be made to feel bad about themselves, but the social acceptance that excess weight is no one’s fault or responsibility. It is one thing to encourage women to accept themselves and a completely different thing to encourage a debilitating and possibly life-threatening condition. Society is turning acceptance into encouragement. It has to stop. A healthy size and body image should be what we are teaching women.
BioPHD commented on Nov 25 11 at 9:12 pmI think the health of the diet and exercise should be emphasized over a number on a scale. While limiting calories is ok with me, ignoring cravings entirely and going to bed hungry is WRONG. Cravings may just be your body asking for a particular nutrient, and true tummy grumbling hunger isn’t good for anyone. I am beginning to think that the amount of weight we gain is not totally under our control during pregnancy, depending not only on the woman but also the baby, with each pregnancy being different. Also, BMI is often worthless for people with certain body types. If your doctor cannot consider your case as an individual, it is time to find someone else.
Jess commented on Jan 08 12 at 11:15 amAsking any woman, obese or not, not to gain ANY weight during pregnancy is essentially asking her to lose weight, which is a big no-no (ask any OB). Blood volume doubles, you gain weight in your breasts as they gear up for milk production, not to mention the weight of the placenta and the baby itself. I’m a mother of two, and as much as I hate to admit it, still carry the weight of baby #2 (now 2 yrs), making me technically obese. At 18 wks with #3, I haven’t seen any weight gain yet, but had several weeks of food aversions and morning sickness to contribute to that. I don’t expect to go the whole pregnancy without gaining anything, that is insane!
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