to think that the NICE guidelines on obesity and pregnancy are just yet another way of pissing off pregnant women?

[PerfectDromedary]

I'm 9 weeks today, and trying to enjoy a first, very much longed-for pregnancy. But as far as I can work out, NICE is out to get me - and the 40% of pregnant women who are overweight/obese when they conceive.

Am I being unreasonable to think that the medical profession has just put on their judgy pants about yet another aspect of women's behaviour while pregnant? It seems highly unlikely that going on a diet while pregnant is a good idea - plus, if I don't have something in my stomach at all times, I'm quite likely to throw up...

(NB I may also be a little bit hormonal. But seriously, ffs.)

I don't understand all this crap spewed at overweight/obese pregnant women. They are pregnant, can't go back and lose weight, get fit etc and then get pregnant, they are already there, why make them feel horrible and guilty?

I was very lucky to have very sensible doctors and midwives when I was pregnant. I was morbidly obese, the pregnancy was not something my husband and I planned and I was scared to have gotten pregnant at such a high weight. But you know what, the doctors just said 'yes, you have an increase for complications of about 50%, but all that means is that if 1 in a 100 women have a complication then 2 in a 100 at your size will have the same complication'. Put everything in perspective for me.

I ate really well when I was pregnant, no complications other than water retention (and that was more discomfort than complication) and my labour lasted exactly 2 hours start to finish, no drugs, natural childbirth.

I have many friends who are not obese who have had ridiculous complications in pregnancy.

The majority of women do fine in pregnancy and childbirth. Once a woman is pregnant I don't see the point in proselytising, its patronising and stupid. Just support her to make the best decisions whilst pregnant for her and her baby.

This sort of article just makes for cheap news, easy to pick on fat people. Tomorrow it will be those who drink more than 5 glasses of wine a week (maybe...they don't seem to get picked on as much).

I've posted on the 'in the news' section regarding the same subject - as I've said in there I will be asking for them to weigh me at every appointment as I am very overweight, as I was in my last pregnancy. If you don't want them to weigh you or talk to you about it all the time then do as SloanyPony said. I know that being overweight increases risks and I know that there are services that can help and I think that raising awareness (even if to you it is very obvious) may help others.

My BP is normal but I have other health complications and want this pregnancy and everything after it to be a turning point for me - I am due to have specialist physiotherapy and will be asking for a dietician referral as well as I want to be a healthier weight. I deinitely don't want to put on weight in this pregnancy, maybe even lose a bit.

This post doesn't make much sense - I am having a bad day so can't really concentrate. Mainly I am saying that it is a good idea to raise awareness but as previous posters have said, maybe the way it is delivered is not great.

my bmi today was 35 so aparently that puts me in the obese category - I dont know what it was at the start of the pregnanct but according to my wii fit I was in the overweight category so obviously have put on weight but I dont feel like I have eaten a HUGE amount and also to be fair (again) I have a lot of swelling etc due to high blood pressure which I am sure isnt helping.

What evidence does NICE provide for not losing weight in pregnancy?
I was overweight when I had dc3, nearly 17 stone so very much a heifer. Overall I lost 45lbs in the pregnancy through a governmemt healthy eating scheme, I made sure I ate my 5+ portions of fruit and veg, cut down on fat and sugars and ate plenty of meat. When the nurse noticed I was stuck at the the same weight for about 3 months she went mad and told me I was at risk of a low birth weight. I replied I have a lot of weight to move and baby is developing fine so what is the harm. She was born 7lb15 so not tiny.

With dc4 I am under consultant care for GD and my dietician told me that the only reliable data for weight loss in pregnancy is from german concentration camps were people were starved to the point of death. The women who gave birth were severly malnourished and had very poorly babies. He wants to do a study on health weight loss in pregnance but he isn't allowed.
If those of us who have very high BMI or are just very heavy like I was were encouraged to eat sensibly and healthily during pregnancy then there is no reason for much of this extra intervention.

I think just don't stuff your face is the message they want to get across, I did stuff my face 4 times but it's harder to shift the weight as you get older and it's nice to throw the maternity wear away sooner rather than later.

Oooo, my annual factual error Altinkum, well spotted!

They were first implemented not that long after, hence my ignorance conflation of the two...

I thought Megan's law was in the US?

Pidgin - I am afraid that we either heard different interviews on Today, or you are a very, very sensitive.

I heard a rational bloke from NICE explaining that at least 40% of women of childbearing age are overweight or obese, so adopting more healthy eating would mean they could perhaps be a healthier weight when they get pregnant and be exposed to less health risks; he explained what the health risks are. He went on (very calmly) to say that people didn't need (in nutritional terms) to eat any more food in their first 2 trimesters, and only a couple of hundred extra in the last.

He spoke facts, calmly and politely.

Shouting?? Er, no. Foam?? Where are you getting this from.

news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8862000/8862364.stm

You can listen again to the interview....no foaming or shouting at all, IMO

I completely sympathise with the OP. When I booked in when PG with my DD my BMI was calculated at 32. I was just within the limits to use the local MLU (didn't work out like that in the end but that's a long story & actually has nothing to do with my weight). I had some nasty comments from a MW when PG & some from another in hospital after I had my DD about my weight which made me feel very upset & uncomfortable.

I had hyperemesis when PG and from 6 weeks to 16 weeks kept nothing down apart from the occasional sip of lucozade. In this time I lost 1.5st. After that the only way to stop me feeling/being sick was to eat near enough all the time, just like you OP. Unfortunately at the time I worked in a bank & couldn't sit there stuffing my face all the time so had to suck on sweets. Needless to say I piled all the weigh and more back on! I want to TTC again & has been long planned for & I have quite literally worked my arse off to lose weight, if only to avoid snotty comments from the MWs!

These NICE 'guidelines' don't exactly tell us anything new do they? We all know that being overweight/obese is bad for us (even if we aren't pregnant or TTC). We all know that we should be active & eat healthier food. How on earth are they going to stop overweight women getting pregnant? Not exactly practical advice is it?! It all comes down to money at the end of the day. And stopping the health in pregnancy grant is not very helpful considering this 'advice' is it? (And yes I am aware that most people didn't spend it on food, but the incentive was there & at least it made people think.) Just seems like it's another way to harp on about the 'obesity epidemic'!

No 'tis all right Altinkum, no sorries needed!

I haven't read the whole thread, so apols if I'm repeating someone else. But why do the NICE guidelines never mention fitness? From the anecdotal evidence of my aquaintance it is the fittest women who have the easiest births. Now, I grant you, that often also combines with being the slimmest women, but not always. I think to focus too much on diet & not enough on physical fitness is foolish. We should all get out & walk more!

Don't worry about it - really! I was about 25-30 kilos overweight (in the BMI obese catagory)when I fell pregnant & old at 39. I was weighed at my booking in session, and no comment was ever made about my weight EVER during my pregnancy. I raised the subject once & was advised they no longer commented on weight unless there were actual & immediate health problems caused by it, as it only made women feel bad about themselves and during pregnancy was no the time to deal with it. Thankfully it didn't cause me any issues during pregnancy & after the birth I hadn't actually put on much at all & I lost what I had due to lots of walking & possibly BF too.

Congratulations - just relax & enjoy your pregnancy.

Firstly, can I just point out to all the patronising bitches who are talking to Dromedary like she's some sort of whale-sized thicko who doesn't want to be told to put down the pies, that I know her and she is an incredibly intelligent and well-informed professional woman with a very healthy lifestyle and diet and a great figure (not even big), but, for whatever reason, is not a size 10.

Secondly, the media are jumping on this issue in a way that is v patronising and scaremongering. It's not the info that people are necessarily taking umbrage at, it's the tone. The media seems to be forever using sensible facts and figures to beat women up over and to demonise us in some way. The recent thing has been to make it sound like every woman becomes infertile on her 35th birthday and if she doesn't, she'll have to undergo years of gruelling IVF only to produce a head on a pillow (that's not an insult levelled at the disabled, just the way the media often infers that all older women will automatically have disabled kids). Now that that hasn't stopped women over 35 from feeling too guilty to TTC or TTC earlier (because it'd not always possible), they've moved onto that perennial favourite, women's weight. A lot of the coverage is making it sound like if you can't pop round to Kylie's and borrow her gold hotpants for a night out then you're a selfish fat cow who's going to kill her unborn child.

No-one is suggesting that being v overweight or even obese is good for fertility or pregnancy (although plenty of larger woman have no problems with either). But the sad fact of the matter is that the very women this media storm is targeting are women who don't realise or don't care that fatness isn't a great idea for childbearing and therefore won't pay attention or act on the advice. The only people who will pay attention are people like Drom and me and others who are very clued-up about fertility and pregnancy and very eager to do everything 'right' and who are already worried about their weight and don't need to have what they already know repeated over and over again as yet another thing to make us feel guilty just for being women of childbearing age.

And yep, I too have a chip on my shoulder. I'm 37 and TTC for my first and am overweight because I have an endocrinal disorder that affects my metabolism, which is bad enough to make me ill and overweight but not bad enough to qualify for medication. I've gone from a BMI of 23 to 30 in 4 years cos of it. I feel ugly and judged more than enough as it is, not to mention v depressed and worried about managing to get pg (which has made me put on more weight) without feeling that medical professionals are looking down their nose at me and seeing me as some selfish heifer who favours KFC over a baby. And I never eat junk. Hell, I never eat sugar (not to mention loads of other stuff). My specialist says that if anyone else had to eat the diet tailored to my condition, the weight would just pour off them. So NICE can fuck the fucking fuck right off.

And one last thing - when my Mum got preg with me in 1972 she was told off for being slightly underweight (she's naturally skinny) and told that was dangerous. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

Obviously he wasn't actually foaming or shouting. I was employing a degree of poetic licence. And of course I'm very sensitive, I'm 6 months pregnant and pissed off!

My gripe is not with the man from NICE - I'm sure he's a lovely person - but with a reporting of this kind of thing that becomes a stick to beat pg women with. As bebejones says, there isn't much new - or helpful - about what is being said. I mean who really has been told that they should 'eat for two' as is suggested at the beginning of the interview?! In fact as John Humphrys pointed out, there is a risk of conflating being overweight and morbid obesity, which are very different things.

The NICE man seemed to me to be risking saying that any 'over-eating' in pregnancy is dangerous - 'every pound gained increases the risk' - not just significant weight gain by heavily overweight women. For once I agreed with Humphrys on this one!

I guess what I'm saying is, it seems like a bit of a non-story to me, but the media will enjoy the scare-mongering potential.

Right, time for my lunch. Toast and a milky drink, anyone?

Yes but if they say 'get out and walk more' then that will equally upset the pregnant women who aren't able to do that.

They can't win. All they've done is publish clinical facts, yet this is seen as a moral judgement.

Great post Scorpette

What Rockbird said about what Scorpette said .

Scorpette is right, it's the tone in which the info is presented. I woke this morning to the news headlines on the radio of which this was second. I can't remember the exact wording but it was something along the lines of obese women warned of the likelihood of stillborn babies. I was completely . No one objects to the information being out that but that is total scare tactics.

the media are jumping on this issue in a way that is v patronising and scaremongerin

They always do, about everything it's their job (i think)

OP - without having read the whole thread, have to say YABU to think that NICE are out to get you.

A lot of the problem with this country is that they are damned when they do, they are damned when they dont.

Swine flu vaccinations as an example. If the epidemic had really kicked off and the government had not stocked up on vaccines, they would have been in trouble. They stocked up, epidemic didnt grow - they were slated for wasting money.

The scientific facts are that there is more risk to mother and child if the mother is overweight/ obese. If the medical professionals do not tick all the boxes re. additional health checks/ discussions etc, I imagine they leave themselves wide open to medical negligence if something was to happen to the mother or baby.
I am not saying by any means that you are not being sensible etc, but I am afraid that you have to accept that due to the guidelines (in place for the right reasons), you are going to find your pregnancy possibly more intrusive to some extent.