A study by the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care found that women who gained excess weight during pregnancy had were four times more likely to have overweight children in early childhood than those who did not gain enough weight during pregnancy. The study was first published in the April issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The study researched data collected from 1,044 mothers and their children in from Project Viva, which is a study of pregnant women and children located at the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention’s Obesity Prevention Program.

“Maternal weight gain during pregnancy is an important determinant of birth outcomes,” says lead author Emily Oken, MD, MPH, instructor in the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention. “These findings suggest that pregnancy weight gain can influence child health even after birth and may cause the obstetric community to rethink current guidelines.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 6:58 am and is filed under Diet and Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.