April 7, 2010
Obese moms increase newborns' heart risk
Posted: 07:06 PM ET
By Caitlin Hagan
CNN Medical Associate Producer
Obese or morbidly obese women are more likely to give birth to a baby who has a congenital heart defect than overweight or healthy women. That's the conclusion of a new study conducted by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Using data collected from all the women who gave birth in New York state (excluding New York City) from January 1, 1993, to December 31, 2003, the researchers found that mothers who were obese before becoming pregnant had a 15 percent increased risk of delivering a baby with a heart defect. There was no similar risk for women who were overweight.
"There are already a number of reasons why being obese is a bad thing if you're trying to have children and this is one more important one," says the study's first author, Dr. James L. Mills, a senior investigator with the NICHD's Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research.
"The more obese a woman was before she became pregnant, the greater her risk of having a baby with any congenital heart defects."
The researchers looked at more than 7,000 cases of congenital heart defects as part of the study. Using body mass index measurements from right before they became pregnant, the researchers found that women who were moderately obese, with a BMI of 30 to 39.9, had an 11 percent increased risk of delivering a baby with any congenital heart defect. That risk jumped to 33 percent when the women were morbidly obese, with a BMI of more than 40.
They concluded that obesity could account for roughly 1500 cases of congenital heart defects in newborns every year. However the study does not state that obesity is the direct cause of some specific defects, like the dangerous hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Yet Dr. Mills suspects that losing weight may decrease a mother's chance of having a baby with such defects.
"We suspect that if you lose weight, you can decrease your risk," says Mills.
Other doctors within the medical community agree with that hypothesis. "This should be a wake-up call for any woman of
childbearing age who plans to have kids in the next ten years – get healthy now," says Dr. Paul Matherne, division head of Pediatrics Cardiology at the University of Virginia, who was not affiliated with the study.
"In the end, this study points to the fact that the less healthy you are, the more downstream effects you will have from not being healthy."
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