Tips For Pregnancy Weight Gain & Big Babies

According to a new study, women who gained more than 40 pounds — the maximum recommended weight gain — and whether their babies weighed more than about 9 pounds at birth, which is considered a heavy baby.

Pregnancy Weight Gain & Big Babies: Study Details
Hillier and her colleagues followed 41,540 women who gave birth to singleton babies in Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii from 1995 through 2003. They used patient medical records and birth certificates to note the mother’s weight gain and the baby’s birth weight.

Also, the researchers say that these women gaining too much weight have more chances of developing gestational diabetes, a form of diabetes often met during pregnancy, which also increases the chances of having heavier babies.

The authors acknowledged that the study was limited by missing pre-pregnancy weights for most of the women and the classification of maternal glucose on the basis of screening at a single time point, which precluded the assessment of glucose control.

The study concludes that women should be careful about their weight during pregnancy and aim for a gain of just five to seven pounds in the first 20 weeks, then about 20 to 30 in the remaining weeks.