Never mind that nobody knows what kind of effects it will have on the child once it's born and starts to grow. What kind of effects will it have on other growing organs, body parts? Every time they have a medicine or magic pill, it is well with in a few years that serious side effect are discovered. I concur Jewel...get off the couch, take a walk, eat fresh fruit and veggies. Either that walk to your next micky d's big mac attack. Jared didnt lose weight by eating subs, he lost it by WALKING.

Our society is increasingly becoming a nation that wants everyone else to fix their own problems. Overweight? Why diet and exercise when we have "miracle" diet pills? High cholesterol? We can fix that too! It is so much easier to live as you want and rely on medicine as your cure-all than to change your lifestyle.

@indigogal - it is already been found to be safe for diabetics to take during pregnancy, so it shouldn't have any effects on the fetus. However, since when are babies born obese, and how does pregnancy weight gain equal a larger or smaller baby? My sister-in-law gained 40 pounds with my niece and had a BMI of around 28 (pre-pregnancy) and she weighed barely 6 pounds at full term. My friend gained almost 80 pounds with her first, had a BMI of 22 and he weighed less than 7 pounds. I gained all of 11 pounds with both of my kids, had a BMI of 21 and 23 and they weighed almost 9 pounds.

Yes, kids can be obese, but for the most part, this doesn't happen as babies, it happens when they get older and Mom and Dad feed them McDonald's and Hamburger Helper rather than natural unprocessed foods. While we, as a society are getting larger, there is a fine line between encouraging people to be healthy, and telling young people they need to be skinny. I fear this will lead to more crazy parents depriving their otherwise healthy children of the nutrients they need so they have a "thin" child.

I think the LAST thing a doctor should do is prescribe drugs to a pregnant woman! IF she has diabetes, fine, but NOT as weight control! He, and others need to reinforce that eating for two means eating twice as smart NOT twice as much!

IMO, big pharma will love this. As for babies being fat in and out of the womb, this has been a fact of life for how long now? Now they don't want people to have a fat fetus? Normally, children out grow the baby fat, and if they don't it could be many things that cause it. Such as genes, or a bad diet due to a lack of good parenting. But this infatuation with pills as a fix all is going beyond being stupid. And the fact, that now we believe we need to be controlled before we're even born? Ummm, I don't believe we need someone to force their will on us as babies, before we even have a chance to tell them no thanks.

how can we have any respect for the political "war on drugs" when these pushers continue to shove drugs down the throat of anyone dumb enough to believe everything the good doctor says? doctors, lawyers, and politicians, the new pimps and whores of the "social elite".

this has got to be the dumbest f*cking thing i have ever heard of,i mean come on

I so agree - anyway just because you may have a 10 pound baby doesn't mean it will have weight problems it's whole life...Come on...these doctors are stupid crazy to even come up with this idea,..

Having a big baby isn't problematic just because they might end up being a fat kid. Having a big baby means you're either going to have a complicated birth or a C-section, which is risky. We're not talking aesthetics, people.

While others who replied to this comment have valid points, Jewel's comment was not based on facts, just her opinion. I am the mother of an 11 lb 7 oz baby, born in 1973. He was my second child, the first weighed 8 lbs 3 oz. I was 5' 7" and weighed 125 when I got pregnant with my second child. I was always active, ate the same foods (and amounts) as I always had but ballooned (literally) up to 210. Blood tests showed I had gestational diabetes. It wasn't my eating habits or laziness that caused this, it was a genetic issue. I had him 12/20 and by the time I left the hospital 3 days later, I weighed 155. At his 6-week checkup I was back down to 125. Please, PLEASE educate yourself before posting remarks on subjects you know nothing about.

"First, do no harm." Hippocratic oath, people! Giving a medication to an overweight mom who IS NOT YET diabetic, and subjecting a fetus to unknown effects in the womb, is irresponsible and possibly just pure evil.

I have struggled with my weight my entire life, and lost 60 lbs. before getting pregnant with my first child. I gained it all back, then some, while pregnant (eating fruits, veggies, whole grains, no sugar and no fast food, by the way), and my baby was still born rather small, just under 7 lbs. During my second pregnancy, I gained much less, but my child was still only 7 lbs. I was clinically obese for both pregnancies, so I would have been a candidate for this pill. My poor babies would have been even tinier if some hack of a doctor, some Mengele-type human experimenter, had tried to dose me with this drug.

This is insane. Let us focus on healthy eating, exercise, things we know to be good for you. But using drugs on a fetus, so it won't "gain too much" weight? Dangerous, foolish, and possibly with ghastly aftereffects that won't be known until much later.

As long as the government or insurance companies pay there isn't a problem. Who cares about no cost alternatives or long-term side effects. Those are all quaint notions like "first do no harm".

Metformin is HORRIBLE. I take it every day and all it does is cause violent cramping of my bowels and horrible diarrhea. "Safe" to take during pregnancy? I'm not sure how "safe" taking something that causes that kind of reaction (in 90 percent of its users) is during pregnancy.

I gained 17 lbs with my first pregnancy and my baby weighed 7 lbs 6 oz.

I gained 15 lbs with my second pregnancy and my baby weighed 8 lbs 5 oz.

I started both pregnancies at about 130 lbs. I was not overwight.

My friend gained over 65 lbs with each of her pregnancies and both her children weighed 8 lbs and change.

I'm 5' 9", weight 143lbs; gained 47lbs and my daughter was 8lbs 5oz.

I weighed 123lbs; gained 60lbs and my son was 8lbs 6oz.

I gained over the normal weight both pregnancies because, in my opionion, I needed that extra weight for my body to nourish and have a healthy baby. I was able to bounce back after both kids. My son took a little longer but I was able to do it with some effort.

I think women who are obese while pregnant should do their best to eat healthy for the child they are carrying but I'd leave the weight loss till after the baby is born. You can give someone a pill but if they aren't committed to losing weight they will find a way to sabotage their weight loss/diet.

natedom, many times they have claimed a certain prescription drug was safe for pregnant women and their babies and were proven wrong later. Thalidomide which was given for morning sickness in the 50's and caused terrible birth defects comes to mind and more recently Paxil was thought to be safe for pregnant women and now they believe it can cause defects in the babies. Just because they say something is "perfectly safe" doesn't make it true. Most prescription drugs aren't initially tried on pregnant women because most women wouldn't want to risk the health or life of their child for some study.

Metformin (Glucophage) has a cap of 2500 mg per day for those taking it for actual diabetes so I would question the logic of giving it to someone who is pregnant off label!

No problem, folks! I have a solution!

Every time an allopathic doctor proclaims these drugs are "safe", and administers them to patients (read: guinea pigs) for a "trial" of off-label prescribing (which this is), if there is harm done due to unintended consequences, then that doctor should be forced to relinquish their license. Period.

As a doctor myself, I am sick and tired of our government and our pharma-medical-industrial complex experimenting with people for no reason other than to establish new avenues for income revenue for completely unnecessary and frivolous diagnoses.

The allopathic professions have a long history of causing harm in the name of profits, while at the same time consciously fomenting disdain for anything natural or wellness-oriented. The hypocrisy is overtly sickening and unethical.

The correct choices for our societies depends upon informed individuals making intelligent decisions for their families' health and well-being. It does not, and cannot, depend upon the very same large industrialized corporate system that creates drugs to only manage disease, not cure or prevent it.

TAKE YOUR OWN HEALTH INTO YOUR HANDS!!! YOU CANNOT DEPEND ON SYSTEMATIZED "DOCTORS" TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISIONS FOR YOU!!!

natedom, many times they have claimed a certain prescription drug was safe for pregnant women and their babies and were proven wrong later

Oh wait, is someone on the Vine actually suggesting at a DOCTOR could be wrong? Arent you the same people who think parents should be forced to vaccinate on a ridiculous, obviously cruel and dangerous schedule that only benefits working moms because medicine is an exact science?

Very well said!

Ok L-3513647, do YOU excercise and eat right? It's a LIFESTYLE! That is the issue with dieting. People just think they can work hard, eat right just for a little while, lose the weight, then go back to junk food and being sedentary. Doesn't work that way. True, there are people that have thyroid issues, but the MAJORITY of obese people eat too much fattening foods, then sit around on their ass, then make snide comments and give dirty looks to thin people, which is just as annoying to the thin people. There are many reasons people are thin too! Heredity, diet, or health issues, which can be just as HEARTBREAKING, FRUSTRATING, AND PAINFUL.

Being 'attacked' by those who are skinny when you're growing up (or even when you're a young adult) does not give you license to give up and submit to a lifestyle of "I can't help it". You'd be amazed at what people can do when they put their minds to it. I'm not saying you HAVE to be thin. But I am not in favor of giving pregnant mothers pills or babies. And so what if people made fun of you? When I was in grade school I had to run a mile like what most kids (used) to do. My time was aweful, it was the first mile I had ever run, I tried my hardest and failed horribly. Did I sit back and say "Eh, I guess I'll just never run again, after all what good is running?" No. As of today, I'm run 6 miles a day (for the first three days of the weeK). There is no praise, or condemnation awaiting me. I do it because it's what I put my mind to. I much rather wold stay at home and watch tv or something when I'm not at work, and every day (almost without fail) I question why I excercise and what's the point of doing it for 70 years. But I tell myself every single time: "Psh, I got plenty of time to be lazy. Now it's time to run." Even 10 minutes in the morning and at night will do wonders for you. Excercise isn't just about keeping a healthy lifestyle, it also preomotes that age-old saying: "Mind over matter". It's also alot better than popping a pill and saying: "There is no point in trying." You can be your critic but if you aren't going to use that criticsm wisely and to motivate yourself, you really are just hurting yourself and putting your self through what you grew up with.

My two cents, now I'm off for a bit of Kendo.

Both of you obviously have no experience with this issue. This is what I am talking about. You canNOT tell what people have gone through just by looking at them and making judgements. No two bodies are alike, DUH!

This is not about my childhood - although it did suck. This is about these mindsets putting yet another generation of our children through hell. Enough already!!!

Do we treat all UGLY people this way - what are they supposed to do? Plastic surgery? Would that be the only thing that could make them acceptable? How many thousands and thousands have had multilated their own bodies with weight loss surgeries, only to permanently cause an issue and then gain the weight back? I personally know two people that died from the surgery.

Good for you with the exercise and being skinny stuff. I have also ran many miles as my fat self, so many that I now have knee replacements due to losing all the cartilege in my knees (at 44 years of age) because of it and my shoulders are messed up from lifing weights. You have to understand that genetics play a part in it. Some fat people are very healthy and do not have other problems besides their weight. It is not for a lack of trying...I have lost huge amounts of weight - 152 pounds last time - only to have my body go nuts and gain it back. Then, I had several medical diagnoses to expain the issue, but it's not reversible. So, should I just disappear and not have children either? Do you know how many years it took me to find a doctor that would take me seriously and try to find out what the problem is? At least 20 years, maybe more.

As for giving skinny people dirty looks - I don't do that either. How can I expect someone not to judge me, if I am going to judge them? Live and let live. Mind your own business, I'm sure we all have enough of our own problems to deal with. As the saying goes, until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes, you don't know what their life is like.

I still exercise by the way - but, now I do it because it makes me feel good not so that I can try to "fit in" to society. If you don't like the way I look, I just don't care - don't look at me. If I can't be a skinny girl by eating normally and exercising normally, then I won't be a skinny girl. I wasn't made that way - I make sure that I eat all nutritional foods, yes, I do have something I shouldn't once in awhile, but I believe everyone does that.

My "lifestyle" now consists of actually having a life - I wasted most of it counting calories, points and carbs and spending free time exercising like a maniac. Even though I am fat once again, I am happier and healthier and nobody is going to take that away from me with their snap judgements!

Thank you for your informed comment. Insulin resistance can hit unexpectedly and can go undiagnosed for years. My body produces 20 times the normal amount of insulin. I am not a diabetic, but I take weapons grade levels of Metformin to control it. I've been to specialists and no one can figure out why this is happening or how to lower it. I follow a strict diet and have been told I will have to take Metformin the rest of my life. I'm shocked at the cruel and ignorant messages posted on here.

Thank you for your knowledgeable comment. I also see compassion in medical treatment. We are all not cookie cutter and options should be available. Again, this is an area that should be between the mothers/parents and their doctors. Not any one else's business. And by the way, I am not pro-drug. I am old enough that most of my peers and some younger are needing drugs to stay healthy. So far I count myself as lucky to not need any medications. There are definitely some very cruel and ignorant comments posted. I don't think it is a crime yet to be overweight. Just unhealthy, I think.

I used Metformin to concieve. I made sure the doctor took me off of it once I became pregnant. I wasn't comfortable taking it if I didn't need it. Now, the only way I'll consider going back on it is if I develop gestational diabetes. I am overweight, but my weight gain is right on track for a normal pregancy and my baby is healthy. (I even lost weight in the beginning.)

I also don't think there is such a thing as an obese baby either. I've taken care of kids that were very chunky babies, but as they grew they stretched out and all of their weight distributed evenly. What matters is how they are cared for after birth and through their childhood.

This is, thankfully, why it is important that Metformin and other powerful drugs are prescribed by physicians, and not by the general public.

The Newsvine commentors are generally NOT doctors; even if they "claim" to be unless they are acting AS doctors what they post here is only their OPINION as part of the general public.

I think the medical community is finally waking up and leaving behind the radical over-generalization of obesity; it is extremely dangerous, deadly even, to over-simplify the causes and complexity of the issue. It cannot be "taken care of" with a cookie-cutter one-treatment-for-all approach!!!