Losing Weight Before Pregnancy Can Benefit Baby If you’re trying
to conceive, you might want to make sure you’re at a healthy
weight first. New research suggests that overweight women who
lose body fat before getting pregnant could improve the lifelong
health of their babies. Plus, it may be a way to break the
obesity cycle since previous studies have shown that babies born
to obese moms are more likely to become obese kids and adults.
The collaborative study from researchers at the Center for
Pregnancy and Newborn Research at the University of Texas Health
Science Center San Antonio and the National Institue of
Nutrition in Mexico City was carried out on lab rats, not
humans, but nonetheless the results were encouraging. They
studied females rats that were raised on high-fat diets and
compared one group that continued that diet through pregnancy
and beyond with another group that started a healthier diet,
with less fat, one month before mating. “It is of interest that
offspring of the obese mothers also show