According to a review appearing in the journal The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG) that looked at previously published research regarding weight-loss surgery and pregnancy, women who have weight loss surgery might want to delay attempts to get pregnant by at minimum one year.
Obesity is a risk factor for complications in pregnancy, including being associated with infertility. This risk factor is found to decrease in women who wait to get pregnant until after undergoing weight loss surgery such as bariatric surgery.
This shouldn't be read as though there will be no complications of course; for instance, band slippage and migration in these women can lead to severe vomiting, and band leakage was also reported in almost a quarter of patients reviewed.
On weighing all the available evidence, study authors including Rahat Khan, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, Harlow, determined that waiting a year to try to get pregnant after bariatric surgery is the best recommendation, although women should always discuss these matters with their physician.
They also suggest this patient population consult experts in fields including nutrition, vitamin supplements, and weight gain before beginning to try and conceive. Furthermore, the best possible outcomes will require a multidisciplinary team of medical experts that might include surgeons, primary care physicians, obstetricians, psychologists, and fertility specialists, among others.
Added Khan:
"An increasing number of women of child-bearing age are undergoing bariatric surgery procedures and need information and guidance regarding reproductive issues. In light of current evidence available, pregnancy after bariatric surgery is safer, with fewer complications, than pregnancy in morbidly obese women. Multidisciplinary input care is the key to a healthy pregnancy for women who have undergone bariatric surgery. However, this group of women should still be considered high risk by both obstetricians and surgeons."
Source: MNT
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