Eating sweets during pregnancy makes for fat babies?

Sugar intake during early pregnancy may have lasting effects on children’s weight.

In a study presented at the Obesity 2011 Conference this week, Phelan et al. report that excessive sugar and fat intake in the first 13 weeks in pregnancy may result in larger infants.  Women who consumed the highest amount of fast food and whose daily caloric intake was more than 20% “sweets” in early pregnancy were at significantly higher risk of having macrosomic babies at birth.  Interestingly, these babies were still high weight-for-age infants at six months.

The findings of this study must be qualified, however.  The women studied were all classified as “overweight” or “obese” at the onset of the study.  The researchers did not study a similar group of women who were not overweight, but had similar diets.  The role of genetics should be considered in infant size.  As well, the researchers did not report on what differences, if any, existed between breastfed and non-breastfed infants.

Pregnant women should eat as healthfully as possible.  An open dialogue should be encouraged between mothers and maternity practitioners to encourage a healthy diet for mother and child.