Weight gain between pregnancies poses risks

The study, which appeared in the Sept. 30 issue of The Lancet, used the records of more than 150,000 Swedish women who had first and second consecutive births from 1992 through 2001. The researchers calculated body mass index, or BMI, at the beginning of the first pregnancy and at the start of the second.

Compared with women who gained less than one unit of BMI between pregnancies, those who gained three or more were twice as likely to have gestational diabetes, 76 percent more likely to have gestational hypertension, 30 percent more likely to have a Caesarean delivery and 63 percent more likely to have a stillbirth. The more weight they gained, the more likely they were to have an adverse outcome.

Courtesy NY Times