Obesity is a fat lot of good for mums

The benefits of breastfeeding are widely known — it improves cognitive development among children and reduces a woman's risk of getting breast cancer or cardiovascular disease. But a new study suggests obese women may not breastfeed as much or for as long as their normal-weight counterparts.

The study looked at information about 3,517 white women and 2,846 black women who were part of the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System from 2000 to 2005. Among the participants, 7.1 per cent of the white women and 5.3 per cent of the black women were underweight; 53.8 per cent of the white women and 39.5 per cent of the black women were of normal weight; 20.9 per cent of the white women and 28.3 per cent of the black women were overweight; 10.5 per cent of the white women and 15.6 per cent of the black women were obese; and 7.7 per cent of the white women and 11.3 per cent of the black women were very obese.

Among white women, breastfeeding was highest among those who were of normal weight and went down as their pre-pregnancy body mass indexes (BMI) rose, with very obese white women having lower odds of breastfeeding than normal-weight white women. Among black women, BMI was not a factor in breastfeeding. BMI was relevant in breastfeeding duration. Very obese white women had on average the shortest period of breastfeeding while normal-weight white women had the longest.