Obesity leads to 'alarmingly' high risks in pregnancy

WOMEN WHO are significantly overweight while pregnant suffer an “alarmingly” high rate of medical complications, new Irish research has found.

The study of pregnant women, carried out by researchers at UCD’s Centre for Human Reproduction in the Coombe Hospital in Dublin, confirms the risk to pregnancy outcomes associated with obesity.

The study, which analysed data from 5,824 women who delivered a baby at the Coombe in 2007, found pregnancy in severely obese women was complicated by hypertension in 35.8 per cent of cases, and by gestational diabetes in 20 per cent of women.

The complications necessitated an extremely high rate of obstetric intervention, the study noted, with the hospital witnessing an induction rate of 42 per cent in obese women, and a Caesarean rate of 45 per cent.

Even taking into account the dramatic rise in pregnancy interventions in the Republic over the past 15 years, the normal rates of induction and Caesarean are 20 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.

The findings, which were published in a recent issue of the European Journal of Obesity, unequivocally link maternal morbid obesity with a high incidence of complications and an increased level of obstetric intervention.

Researchers said their findings also highlighted the need for an evaluation of the effectiveness of pre-pregnancy services in Ireland for obese women.