Tag: pregnancy

The majority of women gain too much or too little weight during pregnancy, putting both mothers and babies at an increased risk for complications, a review of past studies suggests.

Researchers examined data from 23 studies covering a total of more than 1.3 million pregnancies and found 47 percent of the time women gained more weight than recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM)—about 25 to 35 pounds for people who start out pregnancy at a normal weight. Another 23 percent of the time, women didn’t gain enough weight.

Couples who are obese may take longer to achieve pregnancy than partners who aren't as overweight, a recent U.S. study suggests.

Previous studies in women have linked obesity to difficulties getting pregnant. In the current study, neither male nor female obesity alone was linked to taking a longer time to conceive, but when both partners were obese, the couple took up to 59 percent longer to conceive than non-obese counterparts.

"If our results are confirmed, fertility specialists may want to take couples' weight status into account when counseling them about achieving pregnancy," said lead study author Rajeshwari Sundaram of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland.

Pregnancy may trigger changes in the structure and size of regions in a woman’s brain that are involved in responding to social and emotional cues, a recent study suggests.

Many of these changes appeared to last at least two years after giving birth, the study found. Mothers who had the most pronounced alterations in their brains also scored higher on tests of emotional attachment to their babies than women whose brains underwent subtler changes.

"This study provides the first insights into the impact of pregnancy on the gray matter architecture of the human brain," said lead study author Elseline Hoekzema of the University of Leiden in The Netherlands.

A new calculator can help couples see their odds of success with in vitro fertilization (IVF) before they start treatment, a recent study suggests.

Doctors have traditionally been reluctant to estimate couples’ chances of having a baby before they complete at least one cycle of IVF, allowing clinicians to assess the quality of the eggs, sperm and embryos in addition to individual characteristics such as age, weight and medical conditions.

With the new pre-treatment calculator, however, women can get an estimate of their chances before that first cycle of IVF and it can be adjusted based on what doctors discover after that cycle is completed, said lead study author Dr. David McLernon of the University of Aberdeen in the U.K.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder that surfaces during adolescence or early adulthood may actually have origins in the circumstances surrounding pregnancy and infancy, a Swedish study suggests.

Smoking during pregnancy, cesarean section delivery, preterm birth, unusually low or high weight at birth and breech presentation at labor were all associated with an increased risk of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) later in life, the study found.

"Children who were born prematurely and to mothers who experienced serious problems with labor and delivery were at increased risk to develop OCD many, many years later," Dr. James Leckman, author of an accompanying editorial, said by e-mail.

Older mothers may have babies who grow up healthier and better educated than infants born to women in their 20s, an international study found.

While the risk of having a premature baby was stronger for both teen mothers and women 35 and older, the adolescents were also more likely than 20-somethings to have toddlers with stunted growth and children who become high school dropouts, the study found.