A second pregnancy can be put at risk by women who gain weight after giving birth for the first time, a new study says. For such women, the risk of pregnancy-related diabetes more than doubles. The study, done by Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, used body mass index (BMI) in order to determine the health effects of post-birth weight gain. Researchers found that compared with women of similar height who maintain their weight, women who gain about 12 to 17 pounds after giving birth more than double their risk of developing gestational diabetes. When weight gain reaches 18 pounds, the odds more than triple.
The study followed more than 22,000 ethnically diverse women through two pregnancies, less than 10 percent of whom lost weight in the interim. The overall rate of gestational diabetes was 4.6 percent during the first pregnancy, and 5.2 during the second.