Since a longer labor is one consideration for whether or not a pregnant woman will have a Caesarean section, the new finding also means that a physician may need to take a woman’s weight into account before deciding whether or not to recommend her for the procedure, the study authors caution.
The study appears in the November issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
When taken together with other findings showing that extra body weight during pregnancy can pose serious and even life-threatening complications for both mother and infant, the current finding underscores the need for overweight or obese women who are either pregnant or contemplating pregnancy to seek medical attention.
“An overweight or obese woman contemplating pregnancy should speak with her physician about a diet and exercise program to help attain a healthy weight before she gets pregnant,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. “A pregnant woman who is overweight or obese should speak to her physician about a diet and exercise program to help ensure the nutritional needs of her developing fetus.”
Overweight and obesity have long been known to complicate pregnancy. Both overweight and obesity increase the chances for such serious and potentially life-threatening complications of pregnancy as gestational diabetes, pregnancy-associated hypertension, and preeclampsia.
In the current study, researchers analyzed pregnancy and birth records from 612 North Carolina women who gave birth to their first child. The researchers undertook the study to determine why obese and overweight women are more likely to have a caesarean section.
The increase in labor duration among overweight and obese women accounts, in part, for their increased C-section rate, said the study’s first author, Anjel Vahratian, Ph.D., M.P.H, who conducted the analysis while on a research training fellowship in NICHD’s Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research. The analysis was undertaken while Dr. Vahratian was a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Vahratian explained that the decision on whether or not a pregnant woman should deliver by C-section is extremely complicated. Attending physicians need to consider a variety of factors before making the decision, such as how rapidly labor progresses, as well as any complications of pregnancy.
“Nearly one-half of the women of childbearing age are either overweight or obese,” Dr. Vahratian said. “This finding means that before they recommend a C-section, health care providers need to add to their other considerations a woman’s pre-pregnancy weight, as well as how much weight she’s gained during the pregnancy.”