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Weight and Wardrobe

Managing A Plus-sized Pregnancy

By Kelly Burgess

(Berkley Publishing Group, 2003), agrees that doctors need to be more sensitive in communicating necessary information to their heavy patients, but she also suggests that sensitivity on the part of the patient may play a role in how heavy women take the information.

"Because weight is such a sensitive topic, it is often difficult for a physician to bring it up in a way that sounds non-judgmental to the person who is listening," says Dr. Bernstein. "Yet, because weight does increase risk significantly in pregnancy, it would be bad medicine to ignore it completely. A woman who would never feel 'discriminated against' if her physician told her she had high cholesterol and needed to change her diet and take medication, or if she was told she had poor bone density and needed extra calcium and exercise, can respond very differently if told that she is significantly overweight and needs to eat a diabetic diet during her pregnancy. All three of these are objective, health-related pieces of information, yet the one that deals with weight can feel very hurtful to a woman when it is not meant that way."

It's important for a plus-size woman to find a provider that she feels treats her in a non-biased manner. However, it's also important for her to realize that there are certain conditions that a heavier woman is more prone to and to be vigilant about guarding against them for her own health and her baby's health.

The most common complications in a plus-size pregnancy are increased risks of both gestational diabetes and pregnancy-induced hypertension. While gestational diabetes affects 3 to 5 percent of pregnant women of normal weight, it affects 35 percent of overweight pregnant women. If left untreated, both gestational diabetes and pregnancy-induced hypertension can put the pregnancy and the long-term health of the baby and mother at risk.

Want to see more?

• Battle of the Baby Bulge: Returning to Your Pre-pregnancy Weight
• Exercising with Your Baby Indoors
• Belly, Back and Bottom: Your Postpartum Restoration Plan
• Talk about it!

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