Obesity and Pregnancy

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Many women, who have children, are overweight. In this article you can read more about the relationship between pregnant and overweight.

Women with a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 35 to 40 have 26% less chance of pregnancy than women with a healthy weight. In women with a BMI greater than 40, the pregnancy rate of 43% off. Why is it difficult to become pregnant if you’re overweight? This will be explained below.

obesity and pregnancy

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a syndrome that affects more than 50% of overweight women occurs. Women with PCOS are less fertile. Fat accumulation in the abdomen can provide for this syndrome. Do you have a waist circumference of 88 cm or wider? Then you have a higher risk of PCOS.

Cause
In abdominal fat, hormones are produced. More fat in the abdomen creates an abnormality in the hormone. Especially the sex hormone testosterone is produced excessively. This is then converted into estrogen hormone. The amount of estrogen should normally only increase if follicle is growing. If estrogen levels always increased, the brains that think there is a growing follicle. By doing so, the brains follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) makes on. FSH hears the follicles in the ovaries to grow and mature. The follicles are not sufficiently developed.

Consequences
The menstruation of women with PCOS is irregular. Some women even fall out completely. Other possible consequences are:

  • Heart disease
  • High blood pressure
  • Acne
  • Pain in the pelvis
  • Sleep apnea
  • Excessive Hair (normally in places where only men have hair: around the nipples, upper lip, chin, inner thighs and the middle of the abdomen).

Disturbed sugar metabolism
If you are overweight, your body needs more effort to the sugar values ​​to maintain. Insulin is an important hormone in the sugar metabolism. After eating, the blood sugar rises in value. The body uses insulin to decrease the sugar value. Overweight women need more insulin to reduce the amount of sugar in the blood. Especially women with lots of fat around the abdomen have a high insulin value.

A high insulin value has an adverse effect on your fertility. The amount of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) decreases. This means that the body produces more testosterone which disrupts ovarian function.

It also increases the amount of luteinizing hormone (LH), as a result of the high value of insulin. The ovary is less able to follicles to grow.

Pregnant despite obesity
Yet there are women who become pregnant despite their obesity. Such a pregnancy is more risky. The risk is greater of:

  • Miscarriage: Women with a healthy weight is the risk of miscarriage 15%. In women who are overweight, this probability to 75% increase.
  • Pregnancy diabetes (gestational diabetes), women who are overweight, walk 3 times more likely than healthy women to get this disease.
  • Maternal toxicity (preeclampsia): overweight women have a greater chance of pre-eclampsia.
  • High birth weight: a woman with obesity often runs the risk that her child becomes born heavily. This can cause a difficult delivery.
  • Abnormalities in the child: a baby with a too heavy mother can get heart deviations.
  • Baby Deaths: women who are overweight is it 5 times so often that her baby died after childbirth.

Fall
If you want to make your child wish, it is therefore recommended that in order to lose weight. 2 to 4 months after the weight loss, your menstrual cycle will be regularly. After 3 to 6 months you will conceive. Usually it is not necessary to extreme weight loss. Do you need tips? It is advisable to visit your doctor.

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