Lifestyle changes help improve pregnancy chances of overweight women
New research, presented at the ENDO 2019 meeting in New Orleans, USA, suggests that low intensity lifestyle changes can have significant benefits for obese women in terms of successful pregnancy outcomes.
Generally, most fertility societies recommend that obese women lose 5% to 10% of their body weight to improve the chances of conceiving. However, a previous study, conducted over 6 months with a high-intensity weight loss programme, had not shown positive benefits to back up this advice.
The new study, however, was conducted over a much longer period (18 months) and utilized a low-intensity weight loss programme that included up to 12 group sessions, and meetings with a nutritionist and a kinesiologist (movement/exercise specialist) every six weeks.
Matea Belan, a PhD student at Sherbrooke University in Quebec, Canada, who led the research said, “We went with attainable goals to improve their nutritional and lifestyle habits slowly and gradually. We wanted them to maintain it over time rather than do something very fast that is not going to be maintained.”
With that in mind they recruited 130 women and split them into two groups of 65. One group received the lifestyle intervention programme for six months, after which they were free to undergo fertility treatments, and the other group (the non-intervention ‘control group’) were able to undergo fertility treatments right away.
For the lifestyle intervention group, the 65 women were asked to reduce their daily intake by around 500 calories without changing their diets in any way. They were also asked to increase physical activity by around 2-3 hours each week. Matea Belan added, “We wanted small changes, but maintained through time.”
Although the weight loss in the intervention group over the course of the programme was modest (a loss of around 3.4% of their body weight), the women also showed significant improvements in healthy eating and exercise scores.
What was most exciting, however, was the fact that at 18 months, 60.8% of the intervention group had become pregnant compared with just 38.6% of controls. Based on this research a case can’t be made for reduction in calories being the only factor, it certainly looks like a combination of reduction in calories, wise dietary choices, exercise (in moderation) and motivation can all play a part in combining together for pregnancy success.
As another doctor at ENDO 2019 commented; just cutting out two sugared sodas a day would come close to accomplishing the dietary goals for the intervention, which is surely not too much to ask when there are clear benefits to be had.
