This is not the first time I’ve mentioned just how critically important the in-utero environment is in programming that child’s health for the next FIFTY years. If you want to ensure a healthy pregnancy and give your newborn baby the best odds to live a healthy life, you need to begin before pregnancy.
The studies confirming that preprogramming for obesity and diabetes begins in the womb continue to accrue. This is little doubt left that this is true. We no know that the second a woman is pregnant, her decisions affect her newborn’s health. But what about decisions before pregnancy?
Turns out this is just as critically important. Elevated cardiovascular risk, as evidence by elevated triglycerides (notice we did not say elevated total cholesterol), before conception led to a 60% higher risk of having a baby being born preterm. Being born preterm increases that baby’s risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. That baby, with elevated cardiovascular risk, will likely be raised by the mother who never learned to live for her genetics (as evidenced by the elevated triglycerides).
Here’s the rub. The most common cause of infertility in the US today is polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This IS insulin resistance. It is a lifestyle problem. Without fixing the prediabetic lifestyle, you will not fix the PCOS. I have had too many patients over the years who spent tens of thousands of dollars, but no one ever addressed lifestyle, which is the key reason they need the fertility treatment!
By not fixing the lifestyle and forcing a woman’s body into pregnancy when it’s not ready, you are, without a doubt, increasing the risk that a successful pregnancy will put the newborn baby at increased risk for the rest of their lives for chronic diseases. Seems like very short term thinking to just throw some Clomid at the problem..
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002937811001797