BMI increase tied to fetal, infant deaths

LOS ANGELES — As a woman’s body mass index rises before she is pregnant or early in pregnancy, there is an increased risk of fetal death, stillbirth or infant death, and severely obese women have the highest risk, researchers said.

But even “modest” increases in BMI were associated with increased risks, the scientists wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The scientists recommend that women and their caregivers take the findings into account as they consider getting pregnant.

Worldwide, about 2.65 million stillbirths occurred in 2008; an estimated 3.6 million infants die each year before the age of 28 days.

The researchers looked at 38 studies from various parts of the world, 25 of them from Europe and North America, to analyze BMI and fetal and infant death, and concluded “moderate to strong increases in the relative risk of fetal death, stillbirth, neonatal death, perinatal death and infant death were found with increasing maternal BMI.”