Obese Women Are More Likely to Miscarry or Endure a Baby's Death

Women are counseled not to be too thin or too heavy before getting pregnant, and new research gives even more reason for women to watch their weight: obese pregnant women stand a much greater chance of miscarrying or burying their child before the baby's first birthday, the study finds.

"Given the rising prevalence of obesity in the population of pregnant women, the rates of miscarriage, stillbirth and infant mortality can be anticipated to increase," according to the study from Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, which was published this week in the European journal Human Reproduction.

Researchers studied nearly 41,000 singleton pregnancies between 2003 to 2005 at five British maternity wards. They learned that women who were obese in early pregnancy had nearly double the risk of fetal death in utero or up to one year after birth compared to women who fell into recommended weight parameters.

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Is My Baby Too Fat? Parents Put Infants on Diets

There's nothing cuter than a chubby baby. But for some parents, their child's pudgy cheeks, tubby tummy and roly-poly thunder thighs are cause for concern — so much so that they're putting their wee ones on extreme diets, according to ABC's Good Morning America.

One in 10 U.S. children under the age of 2 is overweight, an alarming statistic that has doubled over the past two decades. But while childhood obesity is unquestionably a public-health concern, it seems that in many cases parents' worry is rooted in their own personal struggles with obesity, not with their child's. "I have seen parents putting their infant and 1-year-old on diets because of history in one parent or another," Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, chair of the nutrition committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told ABC.

In an especially egregious case earlier this year, a couple in Washington State was found guilty of starving their baby by putting laxatives in her bottle to keep her from gaining weight.

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Study: Kids Eat Less Sugar If They're Allowed to Sweeten their Own Cereal

Last year, I wrote about a study that showed cereal companies market the cereals with the sugariest nutritional profiles to kids, essentially encouraging children to choose Froot Loops over, say, Cheerios. In response to the study, conducted by researchers at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, major cereal manufacturers including General Mills and Kellogg's said kids simply won't eat unsweetened cereals. Rudd researchers were skeptical. They decided yet another breakfast cereals study was called for.

This time, they ventured into summer camp territory, dividing campers into two groups. In one room, kids had a choice of three low-sugar cereals: Rice Krispies, Cheerios and Corn Flakes. In another room, children were given those cereals' sugar-glazed equivalents: Cocoa Krispies, Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes.

Kids were allowed to choose among the three, and they were also offered milk, cut-up strawberries, sliced bananas, orange juice and sugar packets.

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Babies Who Start Solids Too Early More Likely To Be Obese

Ideally, babies are exclusively breast-fed for the first six months of their lives. Then, solid food — really, a misnomer since “solids” consist initially of soupy rice or barley cereal — is introduced. But a quarter of U.S. infants are introduced to solid foods before they hit four months.

Why parents disregard the recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the World Health Organization to hold off on solids until six months and what that means for these babies down the road is the subject of two new studies in the AAP journal Pediatrics.

One study, published Monday by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard University, shows that introducing solids before a baby's 4-month birthday is linked to a sixfold increase in that baby becoming obese by the time he's 3. This was true for infants whose mothers never breast-fed them or weaned them before four months.

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BABY MILK FORMULA MAKES CHILDREN FAT, STUDY FINDS

Research published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has delivered another blow to the reputation of baby milk formula. It shows how consumption of the synthetic product as a baby can cause increased obesity later in childhood.

The British scientists found how body fat mass in five to eight-year-olds was between 22 and 38 percent higher in those who had been given the formula compared to breast-fed infants. Researchers speculated that the children took in more calories at an early age, which altered their metabolism.

The study was led by Atul Singhal, a professor from the University College London. He said: "This study supports the case in the general population for breastfeeding since it is harder to overfeed a breastfed baby."

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