Zero Weight-Gain Pregnancy- Blame the Baby?

I'm a straight-shooter, so I have zero tolerance for passive aggressive types. My least favorite are those who blame their children for making them fat.

How many times have you heard women talking about "pregnancy weight" they're carrying around years after their babies are no longer babies. I grew up with that silly rhetoric. Every woman in my family regularly claimed "baby weight." Luckily, I also had a look at what they ate and what exercise they didn't do...

What kind of message is it to blame our children for what we ate while pregnant..? Pregnancy doesn't make you fat. What you eat while pregnant does.

Thankfully and tragically, with the majority of U.S. women of child-bearing age already overweight or obese before conceiving, experts have adjusted pregnancy weight-gain guidelines. There's also a new "Healthy Moms" study suggesting the obese mother-to-be keep her weight in check by gaining no more than 3% of her starting body weight during gestation.

We know obesity increases the risk for pregnancy and delivery complications. We also know obesity is associated with a higher incidence of birth defects. Birth Defects. It simply has to be said more than once that we're eating ourselves not just into cancer, diabetes stroke, organ failure and incontinence, but also birth defects for our children.

If you're unwilling or unable to eat properly before, during and after pregnancy, then the socially unacceptable truth is you're unprepared to be a parent.

This isn't about "dieting" or "restricting calories" as the pro-fat bullies roar--this is about a fundamental obligation to an unborn child.

More info on this in New York Times, Tara Parker Pope's "Well" Blog...