A new research is saying that the amount of weight a mother gains during her pregnancy period will somehow affect her daughter’s obesity risk when she grows up.

If women can somehow achieve healthy pregnancy during this period then, this could affect two generations in the future—both her daughter’s and granddaughter’s life will somehow depend on her weight during the critical period of her life.

Led by Alison Stuebe, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UNC Chapel Hills School of Medicine, studies found out the following theories from an experiment of 24,000 mother-daughter pairs.

* The heavier a mother was before her pregnancy, the more likely her daughter was to be obese in later life.
* For example, a mother who weighed 150 pounds before pregnancy was twice as likely to have a daughter who was obese at age 18, in comparison to a mother who weighed 125 pounds before getting pregnant.
* Mothers who gained 15 to 19 pounds during pregnancy had the lowest risk of their daughters being obese in later life. In comparison, mothers who gained more than 40 pounds while pregnant were almost twice as likely to have daughters who were obese at age 18, and later in life.
* Too little weight gain was also linked with a daughter’s obesity risk. Pregnancy weight gain of less than 10 pounds was associated with a 1.5-fold increase in the odds of being obese at 18, and a 1.3-fold increase in odds of being obese in later life.

Pregnant women should only be eating 100 calories per day from their normal intake in the first six months, and 200 calories increase for the last three months. But women should listen to what their bodies need before listening to these guidelines. There’s no one who knows your body better than yourself.