It has been found that severely obese women who have surgery to help their weight loss may lower their chances of developing diabetes during future pregnancies. Research has revealed that women who had surgery to combat their obesity before pregnancy were 77 per cent less likely to develop pregnancy-related diabetes than those who had been pregnant before their surgery.
The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, provides more evidence of the potential health benefits of surgery that restricts the amount of food you can eat, and which can encourage substantial weight loss and help control obesity-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes . It also showed that women who had the surgery had a lower rate of caesarean section.
However, the findings are not so clear cut when it comes to the effects of such surgery on gestational diabetes, a form of the disorder that arises during pregnancy. Although gestational diabetes is usually resolved after childbirth, it can result in the foetus growing abnormally large during pregnancy, and that women who suffer from gestational diabetes are also at increased risk of type 2 diabetes later in life.
A study into the disease showed that, of the women who gave birth before weight-loss surgery, 27 per cent developed gestational diabetes during the pregnancy, compared with 8 per cent of those who delivered after their surgery.

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