Here is some important news for obese women making plans to conceive in the near future. UT Health Science Center San Antonio obstetrics researchers claim that getting rid of excess pounds before pregnancy helps deliver a healthy baby. It was suggested that losing body fat provides various health benefits for the infant.
At the time of the research, scientists induced maternal obesity by feeding a high-fat diet to female rats before mating. This group of females was made to consume the fatty chow in weaning, adolescence, breeding and even during pregnancy as well as lactation. On the other hand, females in the second group consumed normal chow one month prior to mating. All through the investigation, only male offspring were evaluated. In weaning it appeared that triglycerides, leptin, insulin and insulin resistance were heightened among babies of obese mothers.
“It is of interest that offspring of the obese mothers also showed high levels of leptin, a hormone that signals the brain to decrease appetite,†quoted Dr. Nathanielsz. “This may mean they’ve developed a brain that is resistant to the signals that tell them they’re getting fat, and they just go on eating and thus get fat as their mothers were. That is what we mean when we say that the effects are transgenerational. Leptin levels were normal in the offspring of the intervention group, showing that we can break this cycle.â€
All the offspring of mothers subjected to received pre-pregnancy dietary intervention probably returned to normal. Newborns of fat mothers supposedly had elevated fat mass and fat cell size. However, such alterations may not be reversed by the dietary intervention. It was suggested that a dietary intervention for women during pregnancy can be helpful.