A new study found that a diet and exercise program helped overweight women keep off excess pounds during their pregnancies—but the program didn’t help lower their rate of gestational diabetes, hypertension, and other health problems related to being overweight.
The new findings suggest that overweight women may need to make lifestyle changes before they conceive in order to improve their own and their babies’ health.
In a September 6, 2018 New York Times article about the study, Emily Oken, a maternal health expert and professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved in the research, speculated that the average reductions in weight gain observed in the study might not have been significant enough to change health outcomes for many women and their babies.
Read the New York Times article: Diet and Exercise May Stem Weight Gain of Pregnancy, but Should Begin Early