As blogged before, both prepregnancy overweight and excessive weight gain during pregnancy can have significant health impacts on mother and child.
As many readers of these pages may know, there is also an accumulating body of evidence suggesting that intrauterine and early post-partum epigenetic programming may play an important role in promoting and perpetuating the current epidemic of childhood obesity.
It is therefore of interest that this week, the American Dietetic Association and the American Society for Nutrition released new guidelines on addressing excess weight before and during pregnancy.
While there is nothing really novel in the advise given to prospective mothers, the fact that prevention and management of excess weight before and during pregnancy now deserves its own guidelines, is clearly a sign of the increasing recognition of this important issue.
Clearly, the widespread notion of “eating for two” is more than obsolete!
AMS
Edmonton, Alberta
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