BATON ROUGE - LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center participated in a new group of national trials looking into health problems associated with pregnancy.

The LIFE-Moms trials, funded by the National Institutes of Health, show that pregnant women who are overweight or have obesity can safely limit the amount of weight they gain with diet and physical activity interventions shortly after conception.

“Women affected by obesity have the most difficult time controlling their weight gain in pregnancy. Gaining too much weight is associated with many complications for not only the mother but her child as well,” said Leanne Redman, PhD, professor and head of Pennington Biomedical’s Reproductive Endocrinology & Women’s Health Lab. “The LIFE-Moms trials hold promise for the importance of improving lifestyle habits such as eating a more healthful diet and avoiding sedentary behaviors to improved rates of weight gain in pregnancy.”

According to a release from the center, the trials are the most extensive set of U.S. trials to target pregnancy weight gain in moms who are overweight or have obesity.

The trials involved seven teams of investigators and 1,150 participants, with half of those having lifestyle intervention and the other half receiving standard care. Each trial offered a different lifestyle intervention, but all aimed to improve diet quality and reduce calories, increase physical activity, and incorporate behavior strategies such as self-monitoring.

Pennington Biomedical performed the only lifestyle intervention trial that used a mobile phone app to help women control pregnancy weight gain. Moms used the app, their mobile phone, a Bluetooth scale and activity monitors to interact with lifestyle coaches.

You can read more about the research center here: https://www.pbrc.edu/