Earlier this year, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study on how women’s weight before getting pregnant affects their pregnancies. The paper argued that excess weight during pregnancy was associated with large increases in miscarriage and stillbirth. The fact that obesity raises many pregnancy risks — including fetal death — is generally well known. What made this paper striking, however, was that it suggested that the risks increase at much lower weights than previously thought: Based on the authors’ conclusions, you’re better off being underweight than normal weight before getting pregnant.
I was surprised by this finding in part because I spent a bunch of time looking into these risks while working on my book, “Expecting Better.” Based on the evidence I reviewed, I found there were good reasons to try to get within a normal weight range before getting pregnant; but if you’re already there, losing another five or 10 pounds isn’t going to matter.
The data in the JAMA article suggests something different. In the authors’ main table, they report the absolute risk of stillbirth per 10,000 pregnancies by a woman’s pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI). Keep reading
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