Pregnancy health is improved by tax on sugary drinks

Reports from a new UC San Francisco study that found sugary drinks have a lower risk of gestational diabetes in women who are pregnant, and a decrease in unhealthy weight gain.

Published by American Journal of Preventive MedicineThis is the first study to look at how sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) taxes impact the health of mothers before and after giving birth. Researchers compared the health of mothers living in cities with SSB tax rates while they were pregnant to mothers living in cities without SSB taxes. This significantly reduced the risk of developing diabetes or unhealthy weight gain in pregnancies. It also led to a lower chance of having a fetus with an abnormally small size.

Justin White, Ph.D. is senior author and an associate professor at UCSF’s Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. He stated that “all three of these outcomes are essential for health later on in life for both mother as well as child.” It is possible to reduce risk at this critical developmental stage and have long-lasting benefits for health.

Sugar-sweetened beverages have a higher risk of obesity, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease among the general population. The major source of added sweetness for pregnant women are SSBs. They contain 50% more calories from added sweeteners than is recommended.

A strong argument for policy

The national birth certificate data was used by researchers to analyze 5,324,548 U.S. pregnancies and their offspring between 2013 and 2019. The five cities that had SSB taxes at the time were San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Oakland, Berkeley and Berkeley. Data from these cities was compared to dozens of other cities.

SSB taxes were associated to a 41.4% reduced risk of gestational Diabetes; a 7.9% less risk of unhealthy weight gain during gestational time; and a 39.1% decreased risk of infants being small born during gestational period. Researchers considered demographic and urban factors, which could have been accounted for such differences as race, socio-economic status, retail environment, and gender.

Taxes did not appear to affect blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), or low birthweight or preterm infant status.

In the last ten years, SSB tax has been introduced in 50 countries. Studies show that it has helped to reduce sugary drinks. Although research on health effects is limited, one large study in Mexico showed a decrease in obesity, while another in Mauritius found no effect. Modeling studies show that SSB taxation reduces the risk of chronic illness in the general population.

White said that “it can be difficult to measure the effect of sugary drink tax on health outcomes such as type 2 diabetes. It can take decades to develop.” “But showing that we can improve health during the relatively short, and critical, window of pregnancy—and thus have lifelong health effects for the mother and child—makes a strong policy argument for these taxes.”