Women who have children face an increased risk of developing diseases linked to obesity and poor diet, researchers have warned.
And the risk is doubled for those who develop gestational diabetes during the pregnancy, a study has suggested.
The stage of illness when the body starts to succumb to the effects of fat and loss of fitness is known as the metabolic syndrome – and often leads to diabetes and heart disease.
Professor Cora Lewis, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham , USA, used data collected in the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study to determine the correlation between a higher incidence of the metabolic syndrome among women who were aged between 18 and 30 at the beginning of the study and who bore at least one child during the following 20 years.
Research published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology showed that of the 2,787 women in the study, 1,451 were included in this analysis.
Of those, 706 did not have children and 745 had at least one birth during the 20-year study period. Of the 745, 88 had at least one birth complicated by gestational diabetes.
Lewis and her colleagues implemented controls for body mass index (BMI), all metabolic syndrome components and physical activity, and found that women who had given birth to one or more child were independently associated with a higher incidence of the metabolic syndrome (33 per cent and 62 per cent higher, respectively) than women who had not had children.
Among women with gestational diabetes, once baseline adjustments were made, the researchers found that they were nearly two-and-a-half times more likely to develop the metabolic syndrome than those women who had not had gestational diabetes-complicated pregnancies.
"Our findings suggest that childbearing can contribute to the development of the metabolic syndrome and that part of the association may be through weight gain and lack of physical activity," Lewis said.
"Pregnancy can have lasting, adverse physiological effects and may result in behavioural changes," she warned.
She said studies should be now undertaken to determine if reductions in weight retention and central obesity, as well as decreases through treatment of cholesterol and triglycerides, after pregnancy may prevent disease later in life.
Screening of heart and metabolic risk factors after birth, especially among women with gestational diabetes, may offer an important opportunity for disease prevention among women of reproductive and older ages, she said.
Until then, the best way for everyone to prevent disease, including women of childbearing age, is to exercise regularly and eat a healthy diet, added Dr Lewis.
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