Overweight women have more complicated births

Almaty. January 26. Kazakhstan Today - A study has found that overweight pregnant women are more likely to be overdue and have more complicated births, the agency reports.

Women who were overweight or obese before they conceived were more likely to have a longer pregnancy, need to have labour induced artificially and to go on to require caesarean section births Daily Mail reports.

The research was conducted by a team at Liverpool University who examined the records of almost 30,000 women who gave birth over four years.

Three in ten obese women were overdue, defined as still pregnant ten days after their due date, compared with around two in ten of healthy weight women.

More than a third of obese women had their labour induced, compared with just over a quarter of normal weight women, the study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found.

In addition almost three in ten obese women had an induction of labour, which later resulted in a caesarean delivery compared to less than two in ten normal weight women.

However, more than seven in ten obese women still gave birth naturally and the rates of complications in labour and for the baby were the same as in normal weight women.

Other studies have found that maternal obesity is now one of the biggest risks in childbirth. In 2007, it was found that half of all women who died during pregnancy or soon after giving birth were overweight.

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