Birth Problems In Obese Pregnant Women

Obese women more frequently go overdue, have long labour and large babies. This means that obese mothers and their babies are at increased risk of traumatic deliveries by forceps, or Caesarean section.  These traumatic deliveries put the mothers are at increased risk of problems of bleeding, infection and blood clots and their babies are at increased risk of stillbirth and birth trauma and asphyxia (shortage of oxygen that leads to brain damage). 

One of the underlying factors to these problematic births is that the obese women’s uterus does not contract as well as that of normal weight women.  At the university of Warwick there are world class experts in how the uterus contracts.  This GRACE funding means that the scientists will use their expertise to work out why the obese women’s uteri contracts so badly. The funding will pay for laboratory experiments on small pieces of tissue removed from women’s uterus during Caesarean sections. These bits of the uterus contract in the laboratory just as the uterus contracts in labour.  Once the scientists have worked out why the obese women’s uterus is contracting badly they will try many different combinations of treatments to get it to contract better.

The doctors will use the information from this study to apply for further funding to perfect the new treatments and trial them in women in labour.