胖媽媽哺乳期較短

Overweight and obese women are less likely than normal-weight women to keepbreastfeedingtheir infants for six months or longer, a study from Australia shows.

Dr. Wendy Hazel Oddy of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth and colleagues looked at 1,803 children and their mothers participating in a large pregnancy study. Eighteen percent of the women were overweight or obese before becoming pregnant.

After the researchers adjusted for factors including socioeconomic status and years of education, they found that women who were overweight or obese were less apt to attempt breastfeeding at all and those that did were less likely to continue breastfeeding.

Obese women were about twice as likely to have breastfed for less than two months or less than four months, while overweight women were 52 percent more likely than normal weight women to have stopped breastfeeding before two months, and 62 percent more likely to have stopped before four months.

Overall, the researchers found, overweight or obese women were 76 percent more likely to stop breastfeeding before their infants were six months old than their normal weight peers.

A number of factors could help explain the findings, the investigators say. For example, excess weight may change a woman's hormonal profile, making sustainedlactationmore difficult, or it may be harder for an infant to "latch on" to breast tissue if the mother is overweight or obese.

The researchers also report that overweight and obese women were more likely to have pregnancy complications andC-sectionsthan normal-weight women.

據澳大利亞的一個研究表明，與正常體重的女性相比，體重超標和肥胖的女性對她們的孩子進行六個月或更長時間母乳喂養的概率較小。

在一項大規模的妊娠期調查中，佩斯Telethon兒童健康研究所的溫迪·黑澤爾·奧迪醫生和他的同事對1803對母親和孩子進行了研究調查。其中有18％的婦女在懷孕之前就偏胖甚至肥胖。

綜合社會經濟地位和受教育年限等因素的影響，研究人員發現體重超標或肥胖的女性進行母乳喂養的可能性相對較小，而且其中正進行母乳喂養的女性繼續下去的可能性也較小。

調查發現，肥胖女性在孩子不滿兩個月或四個月就停止母乳喂養的概率是正常體重女性的兩倍左右，超重女性在孩子滿兩個月前停止母乳喂養的概率要比正常體重女性高52％，四個月前停止母乳喂養的概率高62％。

研究人員發現，總體來看，超重或肥胖的女性在孩子滿六個月前停止母乳喂養的概率要比正常體重女性大76％。

研究人員說，這些發現可用很多因素來解釋。比如，體重超標可能會改變女性的激素水平，從而使哺乳期長度受到影響；或者是，嬰兒吮吸超重或肥胖媽媽的乳房可能有些困難。

此外，研究人員稱，體重超標和肥胖女性患妊娠期并發癥及剖腹產的幾率要比正常體重的女性大。

Vocabulary:
breastfeed: 母乳喂養
lactation: 哺乳期
C-sections: 剖腹產