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Obesity the Leading Peril in Pregnancy

Posted on: Friday, 12 November 2004, 18:00 CST

OBESITY has become the most significant factor in maternity deaths, warn doctors.

One in three women who die during pregnancy, in childbirth or postnatal is grossly overweight.

A survey found the death rate among such females is much higher than for those of normal weight, either from problems in childbirth or complications triggered by other conditions caused by obesity.

Obstetricians and midwives are now being told to treat obese women as 'high risk'. In future they will have to deliver their babies in specialist units equipped with anaesthesic and emergency equipment.

Overweight women may also receive anti-clotting drugs after normal birth previously they were given automatically only to mothers at risk of blood clots because they had a surgical delivery.

The new advice follows the latest report from the Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths, a three-yearly national audit run by health professionals which investigates all deaths among women during pregnancy and in the year after childbirth. It found that 35 per cent of 261 maternal deaths between 2000 and 2002 were caused directly, or indirectly, by the mother's obesity.

The most common direct cause of maternal deaths was thromboembolism, or blood clots, while the most common indirect cause was psychiatric illness, including suicide.

More than half the women who died had received sub- standard care.

Dr Gwyneth Lewis, director of the Why Mothers Die programme, said it was the first report which had information on the Body Mass Index (BMI) the obesity measure used by doctors for the women who died.

She added: 'Health professionals noticed in recent years that new mothers were getting fatter and felt it might be an important factor.

'Obesity is a risk factor because of difficulties caused in actually giving birth, as well as coexisting medical conditions. Obese mothers are more at risk of dying from blood clots and heart attacks, for example.' Currently, around 23 per cent of women and 22 per cent of men in England are obese compared to 8 per cent of females and 6 per cent of males in 1980.

Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)

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