Researchers of Harvard Medical School have reported that birth weight and adult body weight of women can contribute towards increase of risk of coronary heart disease.
Over 66,000 female nurses were studied and their records followed up for 25 years.The results of the research show that higher the birth weight of the female newborn babies, lesser is their chance of having coronary heart disease. For each kg increase in birth weight, there were about 23% decrease in risk of coronary heart disease and 11% decrease in risk of stroke. Ischemic stroke is also inversely related to birth weight.
Women who have a higher body mass index have more chance of having a coronary heart disease if they were of low birth weight as newborns. However, risk of stroke increasing with lesser birth weights are same for all weight levels for women in their adult life, saying that there exits no association between size of the newborn and adult body weight on determining the risk of stroke.
Results also suggest small newborn who catch up on their genetic potentials and grow up to be large adults, may not be very healthy. Hence it is not a good idea to restrict the growth of babies in their mother’s womb.
