Infants with Congenital Heart Defects

The Washington Post published an article claiming that overweight women are more likely to give birth to infants with congenital heart defects. This was a study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It concluded that overweight women were 18 percent more likely to give birth to infants with congenital heart defects. 

These infants with congenital heart defects had many problems, including defects on the right side of the heart. 

Researchers examined the health of 6,440 infants with congenital heart defects and 5,673 infants without any kind of health problem. They assessed obesity according to the body mass index of women. They defined being overweight as a BMI of 25 to 29.9. 

I can‘t support these findings because the mothers in my book, “Matters of the Heart,” are not obese. They are hardly a bit overweight and still they gave birth to infants with congenital heart defects. 

In my opinion these findings are a bit too shallow. What about all the “skinny” mommies out there who are raising infants with congenital heart defects now? I think that research has to get a lot more intensive when it comes to this kind of defects. Maybe then we will know why infants with congenital heart defects have these problems and we will be able to prevent them early in order for these kids to have a chance at life.

Learn more about women who give birth to infants with congenital heart defects in Matters of the Heart.