by Richmond Mom Mary Beth Cox
Author Mary Beth Cox
Last Thursday March 15, I had the pleasure of attending the Perinatal Obesity Conference right here in Richmond at Chippenham Hospital. The conference was presented by The East Central Perinatal Council and Family.Extended, a new Richmond nonprofit dedicated to “Women and those who care for them.”
The conference brought together over 100 physicians, nurses and consumers to learn about the impact of obesity on the health of pregnant women and their babies.
Are you tired of hearing about obesity? Well, wake up!
Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past several years, you’ve heard about the crisis of obesity in America. Stats presented at the conference really brought home the point in startling details. Over 35% of American adults and 17% of children are obese. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 1985, no state had an obesity rate more than 20%. In 2010, no state had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%. According to Dr. Zacharias from the ZG Health Institute, 30% of kids born today will develop Type 2 Diabetes. “We are creating disease in our children,” she said. “We need to wake up.”
U.S. 2010 Obesity Map
This obesity epidemic has hit the U.S. – and Virginia – fast and hard. To see the dramatic change, visit this site. Obesity is a medical term that means a person’s body mass index (BMI) is higher than 30 (Use this calculator to find out your BMI). Obesity strains all of a person’s body systems (organs, bones, and muscles) and dramatically increases the risk for poor mental health and deadly diseases like diabetes.
Obesity is killing pregnant moms and their babies
The conference’s focus was the impact of obesity on pregnant women and their babies. According to Molly Massey, Executive Director of Family.Extended., pregnant women who are obese are twice as likely to have a stillbirth and their babies are more than 3 times as likely to die in infancy. According to Massey, 56% of women in the Central Virginia FIMR Program (Fetal and Infant Mortality Review) who’ve experienced infant loss are obese compared to 22% of the general pregnant population.
As if these statistics weren’t alarming enough, Dr. Susan Lanni, a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist and Melinda Sweat, a Nurse Anesthetist (the nice person who gives you an epidural), elegantly explained some of the many risks to an obese mom and her baby. They include medical complications during the pregnancy (like pre-eclampsia and hypertension), during the delivery (greater chance of c-section, increased use of vertical instead of bikini incision for c-section), higher risk for necrotizing skin conditions (“flesh eating diseases”), twice the risk for surgical site infections, and the need for more difficult procedures that increase risk for complications and death. She noted that alongside the rise in obesity in the United States, the number of pregnancy-related deaths has also risen.
Risks to the baby include increased risk of birth defects like Spina Bifida, prematurity, stillbirth and infant death. These babies also face greater health risks as adults that include obesity and heart disease. Sonyia Elder, a lactation consultant and co-founder of Family.Extended., also explained that obese moms are less likely to start breastfeeding and don’t breastfeed for as long. Babies of obese moms are also at higher risk of dying from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) or in co-sleeping related suffocation accidents.
This is serious stuff, people.
“I love myself and want myself to be healthy.”
Thankfully, presenters offered a lot of great advice on how to address this very serious, dangerous issue. Dr. Karen Stewart, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at VCU, explained that there are no cure-all solutions to our obesity epidemic. “Lasting lifestyle change,” she said, “is the only answer.” Here are some ideas on how to make those lifestyle changes that she and Dr. Zacharias shared:
For individuals who want to lose weight or have a healthier life:
- You must self-monitor. Write all you eat, all your physical activity, and your weight every day.
- If you don’t write it down, you dramatically underestimate what you eat. It gets easier over time.
- Examine what happens before, during and after an ‘unplanned eating’ to develop strategies for the next time it happens.
- Don’t mistake another emotion for hunger. If you’re sad, say you’re sad. Don’t say you’re hungry when you’re really sad.
- Recognize that regardless of your weight, you are an acceptable, valuable, lovable person.
- Make your weight loss goals come from a place of saying “I love myself and want myself to be healthy,” not from a place of punishment or self-loathing.
Promoting healthier eating in the whole family:
- Change your food environment. Keep temptations out of your house.
- “No soda.” Said Dr.Zacharias “Giving kids soda is like giving them cigarettes.” Also – fruit juice in small quantities.
- “Bring back the juice glass!” she exclaimed.
- Stock healthy foods. Also, do not allow seconds on unhealthy foods, only fruits, vegetables and whole grains. “Know that everywhere other than your home your child will be surrounded by unhealthy food.”
- Slow down and enjoy your food! Put down your fork between bites.
- Remove distractions like TV. Eat together. Use nice dishes. Light candles. Make each meal an event.
- Place matters. Limit eating to certain places. For example, limit eating to a dining room table. That way, you cannot eat in your car, in the living room, or over the kitchen sink.
- Serve healthy quantities. Most meals should be around 500 calories, said Dr. Z. Learn what a 500 calorie meal looks like.
- Move move move! Ensure everybody gets 10,000 steps per day! Wear a pedometer everywhere you go!
Don’t we all have a kind of “magical thinking” that “it can’t happen to me” or that “the doctors know how to take care of it”? But the truth is that obesity and its consequences can happen to us, and doctors are not magicians. Any change is hard, but change begins by putting one foot in front of the other. If you are pregnant or plan to one day become pregnant, bring at least 3 questions with you to your next doctor’s appointment about how to have a healthier pregnancy.
If you are concerned about your weight, ask your doctor about it. He or she may not bring it up. To learn more about obesity and pregnancy, the March of Dimes is a great source of information. To paraphrase Hugo Campos, we have to “[shift] from being mere passengers to responsible drivers of [our own] health.” What change can you start today?
