Nearly one in three pregnant women are also obese, which can lead to serious health problems for both mother and child. Exercise during pregnancy can help cut that risk, and a new study says yoga is a safe and healthy option.

The amount of weight a woman should gain during pregnancy varies. However, excessive weight gain can lead to high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, an increased likelihood of c-section, and other pregnancy complications.

Yoga helps you stay fit by targeting, toning and tightening specific muscle groups. It can help relieve stress, build strength and sculpt muscles. Even recent new moms Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna use yoga to stay slim.

Dr. Rachel Rohde, an orthopaedic surgeon and expecting mother herself, says yoga can be adapted to meet the needs of pregnant women.

“A pregnant woman's body goes through a lot of changes that will alter the way she practices yoga, whether she is a veteran or a beginner,” she said in an American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeon (AAOS) news release. "Women who are expecting can benefit greatly from exercise, especially yoga -- they just need to be aware of their limitations."

If not done correctly, however, yoga can lead to injuries like neck, shoulder, spine and leg strain, not to mention overstretching. Rohde says these types of injuries can be avoided by changing to a more comfortable position.

“One of the best aspects of yoga is being in control of your body and having the ability to do each movement at your own pace,” she said. ““If you are unable to move into a difficult position, you always have the option to get into a resting pose if experiencing pain.”

There are other safe exercise options for pregnant women, too. The American Pregnancy Association recommends swimming, walking and light aerobics. The best way to find out what’s best for you is to know your capabilities, and consult a doctor to find your safest options.

Visit the American Pregnancy Association to learn more about top recommended exercises for pregnant women, or see Rohde’s interview in The Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Parents-to-be everywhere may have another reason to jump for joy. A new, highly accurate blood test may be able to tell you the sex of your baby earlier in your pregnancy.

Most couples have to wait until the second trimester of pregnancy (4-6 months), but the simple test could cut that time in half—as early as seven weeks. The test is highly accurate, too. Of the 201 women who were tested between 2003 and 2009, researchers were able to obtain sufficient samples from 189 and produce 100 percent accurate results.

When a woman is pregnant, her body will circulate her blood with blood from the fetus. For this test, a sample of the mother’s blood is screened for genes unique to the Y-chromosome of males. If these genes were present, researchers predicted a boy.

Early testing can also help doctors detect conditions such as Down’s syndrome and Rhesus-D disease (RhD). This method of testing has several advantages over invasive methods, such as fetal blood sampling (FBS), that can cause amniotic fluid leaking or miscarriage.

RhD sometimes results from a blood incompatibility between, for example, an Rh-positive mother and an Rh-negative child. If the mother’s body detects this difference, it may send antibodies against the baby. If it goes untreated, it can lead to jaundice, anemia, brain damage or stillbirth.

 “Noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of fetal Rhesus D genotype is sensitive and accurate and has been widely validated in Europe,” authors noted. “The United States should begin to undertake clinical trials to bring this technology to patient care as soon as possible.”

This test is currently not available to the general public, but continued success could mean it’s on the horizon. Its adoption into general health practices could help cut the risk of fetal complications of RhD.

The study was published in Obstetrics&Gynecology.

While obesity prevention has long been the focus of figure-conscious adults, a new Harvard Medical School study suggests that parents should also monitor the weight of their infant children. The study, released Monday and published in the April issue of Pediatrics, found that rapid weight gain during the first six months of life may put children at risk for obesity by the age of three.

"At first it may seem implausible that weight gain over just a few months early in infancy could have long-term health consequences, but it makes sense because so much of human development takes place during that period - and even before birth," says Matthew Gillman, M.D., S.M., the study’s senior author, and director of the Harvard Medical School Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention’s Obesity Prevention Program.

Researchers documented the weights of 559 infants at birth, at six months and at three years of age. They then studied the correlation between the children’s initial weight gains during the first six months of life and the children’s weights at age three. The study showed that the children heaviest at birth and those who gained the most weight by six months together were 40 percent more likely to be obese by their third year.

"There is increasing evidence that rapid changes in weight during infancy increase children's risk of later obesity," says the study’s lead author, Elsie Taveras, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor in the Harvard Medical School Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention and co-director of the One Step Ahead clinic, a pediatric overweight prevention program at Children's Hospital Boston. "The mounting evidence suggests that infancy may be a critical period during which to prevent childhood obesity and its related consequences.”

According to a study released in the April 2007 issue of Acta Paediactrica, roughly 20 percent of four year-olds were considered overweight or obese in 2002, compared to just 10 percent in 1982. With such a startling rise in childhood obesity, proper nutrition must be emphasized at an increasingly younger age.

“[The Harvard Medical School study] data clearly shows how the earliest interventions might actually have very long-term benefits," Taveras says.

To learn more about infant and toddler health, join Healia’s Infant and Toddler Health Community Support Group. For more information about obesity, visit the Healia Obesity/Overweight Health Guide.


Sources: HarvardScience Medicine&Health, “Infant weight gain linked to childhood obesity: Early interventions may have long-term benefits.” Web release, 3/30/2009. By: David Cameron, Harvard Medical School. (http://www.harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/infant-weight-gain-linked-childhood-obesity)

    “Weight Status in the First 6 Months of Life and Obesity at 3 Years of Age.” Elsie M. Taveras, Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman, Mandy B. Belfort, Ken P. Kleinman, Emily Oken, and Matthew W. Gillman. Pediatrics 2009; 123: 1177-1183.  (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/current.shtml)



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While the percentage of babies born prematurely has risen by one-third since the 1980s, the rate dropped by 1 percent in 2007 compared to the previous year to a rate of 12.7 percent. Premature or preterm babies are defined as those born before the 37th week of pregnancy. Babies born between the 37th and 40th week are considered full-term. This data comes from a recent national vital statistics report from the National Center for Health Statistics, a part of the CDC, called Births: Preliminary data for 2007. The report contains data on all births in the U.S. during 2007, including information on the rates of premature in each state. Several states still have relatively high rate of premature births and the top 10 are listed below, with the percentage of all live births that were premature appearing in parentheses.

The top 10 states with the highest rates of preterm births are:

Mississippi (18.3%)
Alabama (16.6%)
Louisiana (16.5%)
South Carolina (15.5%)
Kentucky (15.2%)
Delaware (14.3%)
Nevada (14.3%)
Tennessee (14.2%)
Arkansas (13.9%)
West Virginia (13.9%)


For more information about birth, join the Healia Online Community for Pregnancy or the Healia Online Support Group for Childbirth. Find out more about pregnancy by reading the Healia Health Guide to Pregnancy.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, National vital statistics reports, Births: Preliminary data for 2007, Web release 03/09; vol 57 no 12. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_12.pdf

_{Photo: César Rincón, Flickr, Creative Commons}