Here's some new advice for moms-to-be: Watch your intake of sweets, including cakes, cookies and soda, early in your pregnancy to lower your risk of having a baby who is too heavy. Expectant mothers who consumed more sweets and sugar-sweetened beverages during the first trimester of their pregnancies were more likely to have obese babies than those whose intake was lower, a new study shows.
"There is something about the exposure to sweets in utero that may lead to heavier babies," says Suzanne Phelan, an associate professor of kinesiology at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo. The risk factor is independent of the mother's weight gain during pregnancy or starting weight, she says.
Phelan and colleagues at Cal Poly and Brown University in Providence examined food intake during pregnancy of 285 expectant women. They also reviewed the records of babies' weights at birth and 6 months old. Findings presented Sunday at the Obesity Society meeting in Orlando:
•Normal-weight expectant moms who drank sugar-sweetened beverages in the first trimester were at a higher risk of having large babies than the women who didn't consume much of them.
•Overweight and obese women who were consuming more than 20% of their calories from sweets (desserts, candy, soda) had more than two times the risk of having an overweight or obese baby at birth and at six months than heavy women consuming less than 20% of calories from sweets. "Moms-to-be need to limit their intake of sweets early on in their pregnancy to potentially decrease their baby's risk of obesity," Phelan says.
Previous research has shown that women who pack on too many pounds during pregnancy increase their chances of having high birth-weight babies who become overweight or obese later in life, she says. Also, women who weigh too much at the start of their pregnancies are at a greater risk of having heavy babies at the onset and then heavy children later on.
Emily Oken, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who studies nutrition during pregnancy, recommends that moms-to-be use moderation. "You can eat sweets during pregnancy, but not every day. And if you do eat a sweet, go for an extra walk or bike ride or swim."
In a separate study, also presented Sunday at the Obesity Society meeting, Phelan studied whether a moderate diet-and-exercise program helped expectant women gain a healthy amount during pregnancy.
The scientists recruited 400 moms-to-be, including those at a healthy weight, overweight or obese. Half got a lifestyle program that included eating and exercise advice; the other half received no specific lifestyle guidance. Findings:
•Normal-weight women who got advice were more likely to gain a healthy amount than those who got no guidance. The key lifestyle factors that helped: weighing themselves daily, limiting fast food and watching calorie intake.
•The diet-exercise program didn't affect the weight gain of overweight and obese women during pregnancy.
•Women of all weights who received advice were more likely to return to their pre-pregnancy weight after six months than the others.