Obesity and Pregnancy: focusing on healthy ... - Fitness entourage

Posted on
April 5, 2012 by
Fitness Junkie in
Health and Wellness

By Dr. Judith Smith

While we often hear obese individuals described as a ?well nourished individual? to be kind, this description is not accurate.?? There are many health reasons to encourage weight loss in an obese woman including decreasing long-term risk of developing type II diabetes, hypertension and cardiac diseases.?? Obesity adds additional challenges pregnancy from the success of getting pregnant, risk of complications, and unborn baby?s health to consider.

Obesity not only decreases the efficacy of fertility treatment, it also increases the risk of miscarriages by up to three-times thus making it more of a challenge for obese women to successfully maintain a pregnancy.? There are some cases where weight loss alone may help improve chances of successfully conceiving a baby.? If afforded the opportunity to plan ahead, assuring that any chronic conditions such as hypertension or diabetes are well controlled is extremely beneficial to reduce pregnancy complications. Obesity during pregnancy has been associated with many complications such as preterm birth (before 37 weeks), pre-eclampsia (hypertensive crisis), gestational diabetes, low Apgar scores, and neonatal hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) that all may jeopardize the overall health and wellness of the newborn baby for a lifetime.

While weight loss during pregnancy is NOT encouraged, teaching obese pregnancy women how to make healthy lifestyle choices including good balanced diet, moderate exercise/activity level, and adequate sleep will help to minimize pregnancy risks.?? Making these lifestyle changes during pregnancy will hopefully be sustained and lead to overall better health and promote weight loss after pregnancy.

Surprisingly, obese pregnant women are often found to have vitamin & mineral deficiencies, especially in folic acid, iron and calcium.? The addition of a good multivitamin such as AdvoCare CorePlex with Iron and AdvoCare CalciumPlus could be recommended to complement improvements in diet.

While the goal, especially in obese pregnant women, is to minimize weight gain to between 11 to 20 pounds during pregnancy, it is still important to support fetal growth and development.? The AdvoCare Meal Replacement Shakes/Bars could be a good balanced source of protein/carbohydrates as well as vitamins and minerals for nutrition during pregnancy or both Mom and baby.? In addition, AdvoCare OmegaPlex can be added to help improve nutrition and health of Mom and support overall development of the fetus too.

Another product that might be beneficial during pregnancy is AdvoCare Rehydrate because maintaining hydration is important to reduce the risk of pre-term labor.?? In addition, the hydration may help give mom sense of ?fullness? and reduce snacking on ?calorie?dense? foods that have little nutritional value.

Obesity remains one of healthcare?s biggest challenges.? We often only focus on the risks of chronic conditions associated with obesity.??? However, obesity can complicate what is supposed to be one of the most natural, joyful experiences in life ? pregnancy.?? In this case, obesity not only affecting mom?s health during pregnancy, it has the potential to impair health of the baby to be as well.?? Sharing AdvoCare?s philosophy of healthy lifestyle choices and nutritional supplements may help offset of impact of obesity during pregnancy.

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