New babies brings joy and happiness to their mothers -- along with some extra weight.

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But new moms are more likely to shed their pregnancy pounds if they have a "can do" attitude toward exercising during pregnancy, according to a Cornell University study.

Overweight mothers who exercise daily a year after the birth of their first child are, on average, 12 pounds lighter than overweight mothers who rarely work out, according to the findings, which were published in the December 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetics Association.

What sets the exercisers apart from the nonexercisers, the researchers say, is their attitude about exercising during their pregnancies.

"A woman's intention during pregnancy to exercise after delivery, as well as her confidence in her ability to exercise frequently, were the strongest predictors as to whether women would exercise frequently and lose weight after giving birth," said Christine Olson, professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell.

The researchers also found that the more positive feelings a woman has about motherhood, the more likely she is to exercise frequently after giving birth.

Other contributors to weight loss were food restriction and breast-feeding: Women in the study who restricted their food intake after pregnancy were almost four pounds lighter one year after birth than women who did not, and women who were still breast-feeding a year after birth were almost three pounds lighter than women who were not.

In a previous study conducted by the same authors, they found that older and more educated women and those living in households with higher incomes were more likely to work out before they became pregnant. Exercising before pregnancy strongly predicted whether women would exercise during pregnancy.

But a woman's belief in her ability to exercise regularly -- which researchers describe as exercise self-efficacy -- also was a signal of whether she would work out during pregnancy.

Although pregnant women eat for two, gaining more pounds than guidelines recommend puts women at six times the risk for obesity by a child's first birthday. The extra pounds contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity in this country, boosting the risks of a number of diseases including diabetes, heart diseases and high blood pressure, Olson said.

By one year after delivery, more than one-quarter of the women studied were still 10 or more pounds heavier than their early pregnancy weight, Olson said.

She reported that 38 percent of normal-weight women, 67 percent of moderately overweight women and 46 percent of obese women gained more than the recommended guidelines during pregnancy.

Current guidelines issued by the Institute of Medicine recommend 25 to 35 pounds of weight gain for normal-weight women, 15 pounds of weight gain for obese women and 28 to 40 pounds for underweight women.

Additional Resource:

• Cornell University: Ask the Nutrition Expert