Mothers overweight during pregnancy put babies at risk

Pregnant women who are overweight may be jeopardizing their baby's health for a lifetime, new research indicates.

Overweight women were 65 percent more likely, and obese women 163 percent more likely, to have overly large babies than their healthy weight counterparts. Gaining excess weight during pregnancy also contributed to having a large gestational age baby, regardless of maternal weight or whether she developed gestational diabetes.

The Kaiser Permanente study of nearly 10,000 pregnant women examined outcomes among women with and without gestational diabetes. Overly large babies are at increased risk for birth complications and for being overweight or obese later in life.