About 20 percent of women aged between 25 and 34 are overweight or obese, and the number rises to nearly 30 percent for women aged 35 to 39, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said, adding that pregnant women who are overweight have a higher risk of having babies significantly larger than average.
If a woman’s weight is below the advised level during pregnancy, the risk of the baby suffering malnutrition increases 53 percent and that of a preterm birth by 70 percent.
If the woman’s weight is above the level, it increases the risk of fetal macrosomia by 85 percent, research published in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association showed.
An additional 5kg to 9kg of weight is ideal for women with a pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) of more than 30, the HPA said.
An additional 11.5kg to 16kg is recommended for women with a pre-pregnancy BMI of between 18.5 and 24.9, while an additional 12.5kg to 18kg is recommended for women with a pre-pregnancy BMI lower than 18.5, the HPA said
Losing weight is not recommended during pregnancy, it said.
Pregnant women should take advantage of their 10 free prenatal tests, as well as government-run care services, to better manage their health and weight, it added.
In related news, the HPA said that Taiwanese women are having their first child at an average age of 30.9 years, two years older than a decade ago.
The number of women giving birth aged 35 or over has increased 2.5 times compared with a decade ago, it said.
It said 35 is considered advanced maternal age and the risks of stillbirth, premature birth, miscarriage, infertility, hypertension and gestational diabetes increase significantly, the HPA said.
As a mother’s age increases, the likelihood that the child might be born with a low weight, have abnormal chromosomes or other congenital defects also increases, it said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the risk of a woman giving birth to a child with Down syndrome increases with the mother’s age, the HPA said.
The risk of a woman aged 35 to 39 giving birth to a child with Down syndrome is increased by 4.3 times, the HPA said, while for a woman aged 40 or above the risk is increased 13.6 times.
The risks are the same for other chromosomal abnormalities, such as Patau syndrome or Edwards syndrome, it said, calling for women of advanced maternal age to undergo prenatal genetic diagnosis.
Women aged 34 and above, those who can prove they have given birth to a child with chromosomal abnormalities, those whose child is at risk of hereditary disease or those who have a condition that could cause the child to have a congenital defect are eligible to apply to the HPA for genetic diagnosis test subsidies, it said.
Pregnant women should undergo amniocentesis at a hospital and fill out an application form to be entitled to NT$5,000 in subsidies which would be deducted from hospital expenses not covered by the National Health Insurance program.
Women aged 34 years and above comprised 62.4 percent of all applicants of such subsidies in 2018, with 3 percent of fetuses diagnosed with having an abnormality, the HPA said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
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