Delivery by caesarean section does not increase the chance of a baby ending up overweight or obese as a young adult, researchers have found, contrary to previous research. The authors of the study say their work drew on a huge number of people and more fully takes into account a wide range of possible factors that could explain why babies born by caesarean tend to end up heavier. Once these are considered, they say, the mode of delivery itself is revealed as being unrelated to whether a baby is overweight or obese as a young adult, regardless of whether the caesarean was elective.
“Clinicians and mothers should not be concerned with the mode of delivery as a factor in the development of obesity in the child,” said a co-author of the research from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The number of babies delivered by caesarean is soaring worldwide, and a number of studies have linked the…
