They Say: Healthier Pregnancies, Babies After Gastric Bypass

It used to be that pregnancy was a time of blessed reprieve for overweight women. Once the belly grew out past the "is she or isn't she" point, they could bask in the public affirmation of their size instead of worrying about being judged for it. Ladies, those days are gone. Overweight and pregnant, it seems, isn't cute when it means an increased risk of not only gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia but also prematurity, low birth weight, and other neonate ills. So for women of childbearing age who are significantly overweight or obese, a new report suggests, undergoing weight-loss surgery before becoming pregnant might be the smartest thing you can do. 

In one of those "study of studies," published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the authors reviewed 75 research projects that compared outcomes between formerly obese women who had had gastric bypass or other bariatric surgery with their still-obese peers (and some, with their non-obese peers). Overall, they found that mums who had undergone surgery before becoming pregnant had a significantly lower risk of various weight-related complications, in some cases equalling the risks faced by women of average size. 

Weight-loss surgery still carries inherent risks, and it's no easy path. But neither is becoming pregnant, carrying and delivering a baby while obese, it turns out.