A recent report, which has been published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, has uncovered that births by Cesarean section may double the risk of childhood obesity.

A team of researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston has told after the study that births by C-section not only cause babies to grow fatter at preschool age. But, women giving such births also tend to become a victim of obesity.

The group had recruited some 1,255 mother-and-child pairs, amongst whom 22.6% were those by Cesarean section and the rest 77.4% was included the groups of vaginal births. The participants were made to attend eight outpatient maternity services from 1999 to 2002 in eastern Massachusetts.

Also, mothers were being tested from before 22 weeks of pregnancy and babies were weighed at 6 months and 3 years. The study led Dr. Susanna Huh and colleagues to reveal that mothers from the former group of C-section weighed more. Further, 16% of babies from this group tended to become obese by mere 3 years of age as compared to only 7.5% from the other group.

Thus, Dr. Amos Grunebaum, Director of obstetrics at the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center suggests women to be aware about the same.