Archive for the ‘obesity’ tag
Is Plumbing Making Us Fat? #
It seems ludicrous, but Steven Dubner makes it seem a touch less ludicrous.
Bariatric Obstetrics #
Annie Murphy Paul’s story on the discipline of ministering to morbidly obese pregnant women drives home how overweight this country is.
The challenges of caring for these patients begin early. “We perform an anatomical survey of the fetus, but in an extremely obese woman, the ultrasound signal often can’t penetrate through all the tissue,” Chames says. He must use a vaginal probe instead. A thorough examination is especially important in obese women, Chames said, because they are at greater risk of having babies with neural-tube defects and other malformations.
Birth brings more difficulties. The fetuses of obese women are often too large to fit through the birth canal; their mothers are about twice as likely as normal-weight women to need a Caesarean section. Longer surgical instruments are required, as are extra-wide operating-room tables, reinforced to support hundreds of additional pounds.