Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/pKHclU_qRSA Summer is a prime time for baby-making.  Before you take that plunge, you prospective moms, make sure your weight is under control.   A just released, frightening study from the University of Pittsburgh shows that children of women obese at the time of pregnancy were 57% more likely to develop leukemia before the age of 5.  The Pitt epidemiologists analyzed almost 2 million birth records and 3,000 pediatric cancer cases in Pennsylvania. The good news, if there is any, is that that awful statistic applies to the severely obese women with BMIs, body mass indices, above 40.  That’s equivalent to a weight of 235 pounds for a woman who is 5 ft 4 inches tall.   The risk of cancer does diminish with the BMI, so it pays to lose those pounds and approach an ideal weight before conceiving and embarking on parenthood. Shaina L Stacy, Jeanine M Buchanich, Zhen-qiang Ma, Christina Mair, Linda Robertson, Ravi K Sharma, Evelyn O Talbott, Jian-Min Yuan. Maternal Obesity, Birth Size, and