Maternal Obesity Can Hamper The Development Of Child's Brain

Obesity is normally associated with many common diseases like heart attacks and diabetics. But very few people know that imbalanced and fat rich diet taken by women before and during pregnancy can give birth to mentally retarded children especially males. The most important abnormality observed in such children is the appearance of anxiety during adulthood.

Extra Weigh and Pregnant Women:

Fatness can be extremely deleterious for pregnant women and doctors constantly warn such women not to increase their weight before and during pregnancy. The disproportional diet of the mother and any physical or mental trauma suffered by her can cause many different diseases in new born baby like mental disorders, obesity and diabetes in later stages of life.

Mental Disorders Suffered by Children:

According to a recent study there are many other mental problems children of obese mothers have to face apart from anxiety.

• Maternal obesity can cause anxiety for a life time
• It can have adverse effects on emotional stability, intelligence and unwanted effects on brain development
• Such children can suffer from acute inattention problems
• Such children often shows the symptoms of memory loss and social behavior disorders

Reasons:

Many different theories are put forward as reasons for this abnormal mental behavior exhibited by the children of fat mothers. Some important factors are discussed below.

• Maternal obesity effects on the development of neurotransmitters of the brain which are responsible for controlling mood swing. As a result these children suffer from depression and anxiety
• Extra maternal fats can produce more proteins called cytokines in the fetal brain. These proteins are responsible for shrinkage of those brain parts that regulate memory and learning
• These proteins also cause inflammation in the brain and more the inflammation in the brain, less developed will be the brain of the baby
• Various glands of such children do not function properly. For example, pituitary glands fail to produce enough testosterones and low testosterone symptoms start to appear. Anxiety is also one of the important symptoms of low testosterone levels.

This is a very alarming situation because obesity rate of women of children bearing age is constantly rising. As a result, there is every possibility that our next generations will be mentally deformed by birth. Measures need to be taken to encourage young women to control their weight so that they can give birth to healthy offspring which are a benefit for society not a burden.

By Ali Ahmed