Small babies more prone to adult diseases

Small babies more prone to adult diseases
Express News Service

JAN 10: Some 700 delegates from various countries will deliberate on the evidence that links growth during pregnancy to the cause of adult diseases. Some of the subjects that will be discussed during the congress are the origin of coronary artery heart disease, foetal origins of obesity and diabetes. The congress will bring together various experts like medical clinicians, nutritionists, epidemiologists, paedriaticians and gynaecologists to discuss the subject and present it to practicing doctors.

According to Dr R P Potdar, secretary general, organising committee, India faces a host of problems like high population, low birth weight babies, high infant mortality rate, diabetes and under nutrition of girls and woman. There is an urgent need to tackle all these problems. For this an awareness is needed among the general public, which would largely comprise of the upper and lower classes, he said. This information is also of fundemental use to the health planners in the country, since the number of people dying from all these diseases has increased in recent years, he pointed out.

The joint secretary of the congress, Dr Caroline Fall, said that India has the largest number of the world's smallest mothers and babies, and an increase in incidence of cardiovascular diseases and type two diabetes. Therefore, India has been a major contributor to this area of research, which has been done at Mumbai, Pune, Vellore, Mysore and New Delhi, she said. She explained that the problem of low birth weight is very acute and leads to conditions like blood pressure, diabetes, insulin resistance, high cholesterol and central obesity. She quoted Dr V Ramalingaswami, who said that `millions of women in south Asia have neither the knowledge nor the means nor the freedom to act in their own and their childrens' best interests.'

It was later suggested that steps should be taken so that with better diet diet during pregnancy steps can be taken to avoid obesity in low birth weight children and the growth of the girl child be improved. Steps should also be taken to improve the body weight of women during pregnancy. Studies on the subject of foetal origins of adult disease are being carried out at KEM Hospital, Pune, Holdsworth Memorial Hospital, Mysore, Christian Medical College, Vellore, AIIMS, New Delhi and Centre for the Study of Social Change, Mumbai.