Drinking Sugary Beverages In Pregnancy Linked To Kids’ Later Weight Gain

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Life drastically changes for every woman once she hears the news about her pregnancy. There is a sort of focus shift that happens too. This is the time when suddenly all that matters to an expecting mom is her child’s well-being. And, with the recent awareness about the importance of fitness, the curiosity of whether anything that she does during pregnancy may affect her child’s physical health does not come as a surprise. Perhaps, that is why some researchers decided to conduct a study on the correlation between an expecting mom’s intake of sugary beverages and the child’s potential risk of obesity.

What is your take on this? Do you think that a soon-to-be mom’s sugary beverage cravings can put her little one at risk for weight gain later on in life? Perhaps! At least, this is what a new study seems to suggest (1).

The study observed all the eight-year-old kids who were asked to consume a minimum of 50 percent of sugar-sweetened drink every week. It was found that the kids whose mothers consumed over two sugary beverages each day in their pregnancy’s second trimester gained around two pounds more. The authors of the study said that it seems the child’s weight was more influenced by the mother’s intake of sugary drinks rather than his/her own diet.

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The study involved around 1,100 expecting mothers who were requested to report their consumption of food. During the course of each trimester of pregnancy, these surveys were collected. And, this study took place from the year 1999 to 2002.

All the soon-to-be mothers were given a few categories of drinks to choose from, be it diet soda, fruit juice, water, and sugary soda. And, then the women were told to rate all these beverages, depending on how much of it they consumed at an average during the pregnancy.

After the birth of the baby, the researchers involved in the study continued to follow up annually about both the mom and the kid for around six years. And, these researchers even went for an in-person visit when the children turned six months, three years, and eight years old.

The results of the study showed that the kids born to moms whose intake of sugary beverages were more had higher body-fat content. And, this was regardless of the diet of the little ones. The results of this study did not come as a surprise to the pediatrics assistant professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, Dr. Tracey Wilkinson. She mentioned how the idea of ‘imprinting’ taking place even before the baby’s birth is gradually becoming more widely accepted.

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Sheryl Rifas-Shiman, a biostatistician at Boston’s Harvard Medical School and also an author of the study, talked about how this study was the first of its kind. There have been many observational as well as statistical studies on the association between sugary beverages and weight gain in non-pregnant children and adults. But, this is the first time that a study has been conducted to see if there is any link between the intake of beverage during pregnancy and the future child’s obesity.

But it is important to note that the study has not proved a cause-and-effect association between the two. It has just shown that there is some correlation that exists. Also, the research didn’t show any correlation between the intake of such beverages during the first trimester and childhood obesity. One of the reasons for this research is to create awareness since children who gain weight early on in life may find it more difficult to grow out of it. With this study, the authors hope that expecting moms are also going to be more careful about what they consume during pregnancy.

We are sure that you have already been following all the dos and don’ts list religiously. Now that you are aware of this, you may want to try and incorporate this one in your routine too. Good luck!

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