Mother’s obesity boosts risk for major birth defects

PARIS: Children of obese women are more likely to be afflicted by major birth defects, including malformations of the heart and genitals, according to a study published on Thursday.

The fatter the mother, the higher the risk, it found.

"We found that risks of major congenital malformations in offspring progressively increase with maternal overweight and severity of obesity," researchers wrote in The BMJ medical journal.

"Thus, efforts should be made to encourage women of reproductive age to adopt a healthy lifestyle and to obtain a normal body weight before conception."

According to research published last year, the number of women aged 18 and older classified as severely obese, doubled from about 50 million to 100 million in just 10 years from 2000.

It warned that if current trends continue, one in five women will be obese, and one in 10 severely obese, by 2025.

People are divided into weight categories based on their Body Mass Index (BMI) -- a ratio of weight-to-height squared.

Under the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard, a BMI of 18.5-24.9 is normal, 25-29.9 overweight, 30-34.9 moderately obese, 35-39.9 severely obese, and anything over 40 morbidly obese.

For the new study, researchers used data on more than 1.2 million births registered in Sweden from 2001 to 2014.

They gathered information on major congenital malformations, also known as birth defects, and compared this to the BMI of the mother at the time she gave birth. Just over 43,500 of the children studied had a major malformation, the researchers found.