From the “More News to Weigh You Down” Department

If you’re on maternity leave, keep those daily walks, exercise routines and tight pants on at meal times. Research from Sweden shows that gaining weight after your first child is born can lead to increased risks when delivering the second.

• A study of 150,000 women has found that even those who are not medically overweight but put on the pounds between babies run increased risks of several harmful conditions. These include pre-eclampsia, temporarily high blood pressure and diabetes during pregnancy, caesarean delivery, stillbirth and babies that are large for their gestational age, reported today’s Guardian.

The weight gain doesn’t have to be a big one. Even gains that stay within what constitutes a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) can increase the risks. Eduardo Villamor of the Harvard School of Public Health and Sven Cnattingius of the Karolinska Institute, authors of the study, told journalists that small increases in weight lead to more difficult second deliveries.

• “Our study underscores the importance of avoiding weight gain between pregnancies and accords with the view that even a moderately increased BMI could be deleterious for maternal and neonatal health,” the authors said.