Women who have undergone a weight loss procedure called bariatric surgery are advised to wait more than two years to get pregnant. Experts confirm that if pregnancy occurs soon after such a weight loss procedure was done, the mother might likely have complications or bring increased risks to the infant.
In a research published in the JAMA Surgery journal, experts discovered that a significant number of pregnant moms had risky pregnancy and delivery. Their babies were either born prematurely or were in need of intensive care after the delivery. Their babies also presented poor health and low birth weight.
The experts tied these cases to the moms who have had weight loss bariatric surgery less than two years before getting pregnant. Over 10,000 women's data was compared in the study, where at least 1,859 mothers had bariatric surgery. The researchers compared their data with the other women who did not have the surgery to come up with the results.
"A recently postoperative mother with underlying nutritional, metabolic, and physiological changes is at an elevated risk for perinatal complications," Dr. Brodie Parent of the research team said, Health Day reports. In other words, a woman who has had weight loss bariatric surgery is already nutritional deficit to begin with. Hence, she has to balance her nutritional needs first and ensure that her body recovers completely after the weight loss surgery.
Mothers also have to take note that the fetus would gain its nutrients from her body too. So, if she's already nutritionally deficient, then it can also reflect on the baby.
Weight loss bariatric surgery includes procedures like adjustable gastric banding, banded gastroplasty, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy, Medscape reports. It is a helpful solution for women who are obese, which the experts don't discourage altogether. Learn more about the effects of weight loss bariatric surgery and pregnancy in the video below.
