Grant: Operating Grant

Due to the increasing rates of childhood obesity, more women in their childbearing years have suffered weight problems from a young age. When these obese women become pregnant, they expose their unborn babies to a poor environment inside the womb. We have used rats as a model to study what happens to the mother and baby during pregnancy when the mother is obese. Our research has shown that placenta, the organ that nourishes the baby, of the obese rat does not work properly and this compromises the health of their pups. Our goal is to understand how being obese results in these complications with the placenta. We have evidence that obesity affects a type of cell called the trophoblast. Trophoblasts play an important role in forming the placenta. We have evidence that when a woman is obese, there are stress signals in her blood that causes the placenta to change the way it works. These signals can affect the ability of the placenta to grow and function normally and this will result in poor health for the baby. Using our rat model, we will look at normal weight and obese animals at early and late stages of their pregnancy, and determine differences in the structure of placenta and the types of stress signals being released. We hope to give the obese rats a drug called Metformin which is expected to repair the function of the trophoblasts. This drug is already FDA approved for use in pregnancy for the treatment of other conditions. Our studies will help to determine whether this drug can be used more generally to help the placenta work normally and improve the health of the babies born to obese rats. We hope to be able to use the results of our findings to help the millions of women and their babies avoid many of the health complications associated with being obese during pregnancy with a minimum of delays due to expensive drug trials because of the proven safety record for Metformin.