Obese women who lose weight through surgical intervention before getting pregnant have found to be less likely candidates for gestational diabetes, a new study says.

Women who have weight loss surgery before they get pregnant are also less likely to require a cesarean section during childbirth, says the study conducted by researchers at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The researchers compared the rates of gestational diabetes and related symptoms like cesarean delivery among 346 obese women who underwent weight loss (bariatric) surgery prior to pregnancy, They also analyzed data from another sample size of 354 obese women who had bariatric surgery after delivery with most of the them having had a gastric bypass operation as well.

Based on the known fact that weight loss surgery limits the amount of food a person consumes and is able to digest, the researchers did a comparison of the two groups and found that the rate of gestational diabetes was eight percent in the case of women who had bariatric surgery before their pregnancies.

At the other end of the spectrum, they found that 27 percent of the women who had the surgery after their pregnancy and delivery had gestational diabetes. Similarly, the rate of cesarean delivery was lower at 28 percent among the first group as against 43 per cent in the second group of women who surgically removed excess fat after their deliveries.

The results of the study, which appears in the last issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, quotes senior author Dr. Martin Makary of the John Hopkins University School of Medicine, to say that most women who went for bariatric surgery did not weight for the prescribed two years before delivering a baby.