Fat Babies Face Health Problems

Babies who gain weight too fast in the first years of life can become obese and develop high blood pressure later in life, putting hem at risk of early heart disease, researchers said Monday.

The study, published in Tuesday's issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation, is one of three issued this week that said it is important to make sure infants and young children do not put on weight too quickly.

"Pediatricians often encourage catch-up growth for babies with low birth weight, but we didn't know if this might lead to higher blood pressure in these people when they are adults," Dr. Catherine Law of the University of Southampton in Britain, who led one of the studies, said in a statement.

Teams at Southampton found in a number of studies that babies weighing less than 5.5 pounds grew up to have a range of heart problems. Researchers wondered whether the practice of fattening up the babies after birth, which doctors often encourage mothers to do, might inadvertently lead to higher blood pressure and a higher risk of heart disease in those children.

To find out, they studied 346 British men and women, averaging 22 years old, who had their weight and height measured regularly from birth to age 10.

"We found that lower birth weight and greater weight gain between one and five years of age were associated with higher systolic blood pressure in young adult life," Law's team wrote.

"In our study, the highest blood pressures were found in men and women who had low birth weight but gained the most weight during early childhood," the researchers said. "Children who have higher body mass are more likely to become obese as adults, a matter of public health concern."

Twenty percent of the U.S. population is obese, putting them at greater risk of heart disease, diabetes and certain kinds of cancer.

The answer may be as simple as breastfeeding babies for the recommended one year, or for as long as possible, said another study published in the journal Pediatrics.

"Definitely I am not telling people that they should put babies on a diet," Dr. Nicolas Stettler, a pediatric nutrition specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who led the second study, said in a telephone interview.

"I think what can be recommended is what the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends -- that is exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life. It is not necessary to add other foods during the first six months of life."

The AAP recommends adding solid food slowly at six months and continuing to breastfeed until the baby is a year old.

Many parents start adding solid foods at around four months, which is what doctors often used to recommend, but more recent studies show this is not good for the baby.

Formula-fed babies can get too many calories, Stettler said. "We know that breastfed infants gain weight more slowly than formula-fed infants and are less likely to become overweight," he said.

And there cold be a danger, the researchers said, in developing countries where many low weight babies are born. Those children often gain weight quickly on more Western-style diets provided by food aid programs.

"Early infancy seems to be a critical period for the establishment of obesity. Babies double their birth weight during the first four to six months, so this may be a period for the establishment of weight regulation," said Stettler.

His team found that babies who gained 3.5 ounces above the normal weight gain each month had a 25 percent increased risk of being overweight by the age of seven.

Parents also are urged to take their children to the pediatrician regularly to have their weight and height measured.

In the United States, the number of overweight children aged six to 11 has tripled over the past 30 years.

A third study, also published in the journal Circulation, suggested where children carry extra weight also might be an important indicator of high blood pressure.

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