#plussizebirth

Yup, it’s pretty normal to have irregular bleeding or a unusual cycle right after getting off of birth control.  Even though the hormones of the birth control pill wash out within approximately 24 hours (that’s why you have take one every day) it can take a while for your body to get back into it’s own cycle and start kicking back into gear.

Here’s the thing about ‘obesity’ and pregnancy: we have lots of information about increased risks for parents-to-be and babies, but it is very difficult to parse out exactly what those risks are related to.  For example, when I read an article showing that obese patients are more likely to have gestational diabetes (which in-and-of-itself increases risks for babies) it is not clear from the article whether they took any steps to identify the diet, activity level, and the way in which they were determined to be obese.  [read more on why BMI doesn’t tell us anything.]

The research that does exist indicates that overweight pregnant people are at an increased risk for:

Difficulty conceiving (more adipose tissue [fat] increases estrogen levels, shortening the second half of the menstrual cycle or eliminating it all together, preventing an egg from being released or preventing a fertilized egg from implanting into the uterine wall.)

Miscarriage (no in-depth explanation or exploration of why)

Gestational Diabetes (likely more related to that person’s pre-pregnancy risk for diabetes than their current weight)

Pre-Eclampsia (research confounded by many other risk factors such as ethnicity, age, and number of babies)

Preterm labor and birth (unclear why)

Cesarean birth (likely due to the fact that obese patients are more likely to have a longer birth and fetal heart tones being more difficult to hear, due to the physics of the abdomen, making providers nervous and more likely to call a cesarean section.)

Do I think that someone planning to get pregnant, regardless of weight, should try to get a “little healthier” before getting pregnant?  Absolutely!  Practically everyone can stand to be a little healthier.  Good guidelines for pregnancy for EVERYONE include:

Exercising daily (30 minutes of getting your heart rate faster than normal)

Eating “whole” foods (not the grocery store) - foods that are as close to their original form as possible.  Processed foods have more weird stuff and are generally less nutritious.  

Eating many small meals throughout the day rather than 3 large meals.  

Boosting protein and cutting unnecessary carbs.  That doesn’t mean no carbs - they’re useful too - but switching a snack of chips or crackers for a handful of nuts, a cheese stick, or a yogurt.

Decreasing sugar in your diet by cutting out sodas, candies, sweets, and juice.  Check the labels on drinks like gatorade or ice tea to see how much sugar there is - you’ll probably be shocked.

Drink half your body weight in ounces.  (If you weigh 150 lbs, drink 75 oz of water daily).  Increase that to 100 oz of water in the 2nd half of the pregnancy.