Pregnant Women Who Are Obese More Likely To Have Birth Defects

Boston (HealthKnowItAll) - According to a new study, pregnant women who are obese are more likely to have babies who are born with birth defects.

The new study was led by Judith Rankin of Newcastle University in the UK.

For the research, they focused their attention on reviewing around 2,000 studies on pregnant women.

The hope was that they would be able to try and see if there was any link between the weight of women before they got pregnant, and the risk of birth defects.

What they found was that women who were obese when they were pregnant put their babies at an 87% higher risk of having a neural tube defect.

They were also 68% more likely to have a baby who has hydrocephaly, 30% more likely to have a baby with heart problems, and twice as likely to have a baby with spina bifida.

Overall, a direct link was found between obesity during pregnancy, and an increased risk of birth defects.

There is still no reasoning as to exactly why obesity increases the birth defects risk.

WHat they know now though is that the risk can be reduced if women shed the excess pounds prior to getting pregnant.

The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.