Pregnancy, childbirth, and lap band surgery
As obesity becomes a crisis worldwide, one of the concerns that we are dealing with is the effect it has on babies that are born to obese women. After plastic surgery became an option for morbidly obese people to lose weight, it was not clear what effect it would have on babies born to them. Previous research had shown that obese women have high-risk pregnancies and their newborns do not fare as well as non-obese women.
Dr. John Dixon and his team studied the pregnancy outcomes of the first 100 births in their bariatric practice. Seventy-nine of the women underwent laparoscopic adjustable gastric band surgery (LAGB), a surgical weight loss method commonly referred to as “lap band.” Results were compared to outcomes in obese controls and the general community as well as prior pregnancies in 54 of the women before the surgery. This study tells us that babies born to severely obese women after weight loss surgery with LAGB are just as healthy as babies born in the community and are healthier than babies born to obese women, including births in the same women prior to surgery.
“Our study provides evidence that significant weight loss is not harmful to the fetus in terms of its growth and development,” says Dr. Dixon. “Women who are considering whether they will undergo weight loss surgery for their own health should also factor in the potential benefit to their baby if they think they will have children in the future.”
The incidence of negative birth outcomes including stillbirth, fetal abnormalities, pre-term deliveries and low or high birth weight were consistent with community outcomes and better than those in severely obese women. Maternal complications were also reduced after the band surgery. The researchers attribute the improved outcomes to weight loss, monitoring during pregnancy, band adjustments and nutritional support that may minimize the risk to the developing fetus of growth and development abnormalities.
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