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Promoting a Healthy Weight After Delivery

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Obesity During Pregnancy in Clinical Practice

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Abstract

There are over 1.4 million overweight or obese women who become pregnant each year in the United States. The postpartum period may be a critical period for postpartum weight retention, long-term weight gain, and chronic obesity for young women. Achieving a healthy weight after delivery in women who were overweight or obese prior to pregnancy should be possible, but will require the use of relevant, evidence-based lifestyle interventions. There is a lack of consensus from medical and public health policy organizations about how lifestyle interventions should be implemented in the postpartum period. Differences in recommendations may be due in part to limited and inconsistent evidence of the effectiveness of postpartum interventions on weight loss. Larger-scale trials with rigorous methodology, diverse study samples, and consistent outcome measures are needed to confirm intervention effectiveness in the postpartum period. The translation and dissemination of evidence-based interventions to high-risk populations deserves further attention.

“If I don’t lose weight, that puts me at high risk for heart disease, heart attacks and stroke,” FIRST WIND Trial participant, 2008. [1]

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Alexander Berger MD, MPH

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Diabetes and Obesity Core, Center for Women’s Health Research, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Wanda Nicholson MD, MPH, MBA

Authors
  1. Alexander Berger MD, MPH
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  2. Wanda Nicholson MD, MPH, MBA
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Correspondence to Wanda Nicholson MD, MPH, MBA .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Wanda Nicholson

  2. School of Nursing, Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA

    Kesha Baptiste-Roberts

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Berger, A., Nicholson, W. (2014). Promoting a Healthy Weight After Delivery. In: Nicholson, W., Baptiste-Roberts, K. (eds) Obesity During Pregnancy in Clinical Practice. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2831-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2831-1_8

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