{"id":141883,"date":"2025-04-22T22:51:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T02:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=141883"},"modified":"2025-04-22T22:51:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T02:51:38","slug":"weight-loss-surgery-leads-to-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=141883","title":{"rendered":"Weight-Loss Surgery Leads to Pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo courtesy of<\/em> St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(SLUHN)<\/span><\/p>\n

Weight-Loss Surgery Leads to Pregnancy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jessica and Jeffrey Smith of Stroudsburg wondered whether they would ever realize their dream of starting a family after enduring years of frustration trying to conceive a baby and considering the high cost of fertility options like IUI and IVF.<\/p>\n

They succeeded with an unexpected option for Jessica \u2014 bariatric surgery.<\/p>\n

During her time struggling to have a child, Jessica discovered she had insulin-resistant polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). As she learned about fertility options, doctors told her that women with PCOS who were struggling to conceive a baby sometimes succeeded after weight-loss surgery.<\/p>\n

Jessica had contemplated weight-loss surgery before but opted against it, trying to lose weight on her own. With bariatric surgery covered under her insurance \u2014 IVF wasn\u2019t \u2014 she chose to undergo gastric bypass surgery as a last chance to have a baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wound up losing 140 pounds from my heaviest to my smallest,\u201d she said. \u201cI had my gastric bypass Feb. 7, 2023. We were told by the doctor that we needed to wait at least a year for me to safely lose enough weight to try [to conceive a baby].<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the time we were cleared to try to the time we conceived was only 2 1\/2 months. The surgery did exactly what we hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica, 37, and Jeffrey welcomed their first child, daughter Riley June Smith, on Feb. 7, 2025 \u2014 exactly 2 years after Jessica had her bariatric surgery. Jessica\u2019s due date was Feb. 28, but she developed preeclampsia during her pregnancy, which led doctors to schedule a C-section for Feb. 7.<\/p>\n

Jessica was worried about having her baby three weeks early, but having her C-section date line up with her bariatric surgery anniversary represented a full-circle moment for her and her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a new mom is very interesting,\u201d Jessica said. \u201cI love it. I\u2019m totally in love with her. She does have her days and nights mixed up right now, which can be a little challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut just getting to know each other because she\u2019s getting quite a little personality, and getting to know the type of person I am postpartum has been pretty cool. When they say that you\u2019re totally in love with this person you never met, it\u2019s so true.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust falling in love with her more each day has been the best part of it,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd seeing my husband become a dad is\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0the best part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About St. Luke\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1872,\u00a0St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 21,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 350+ outpatient sites. With annual net revenue of $4 billion, the Network\u2019s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke\u2019s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke\u2019s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only four-year medical school campus. It also operates the nation\u2019s oldest School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 52 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 500 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke\u2019s, a member of the Children\u2019s Hospital Association, established the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.<\/p>\n

SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare\u2019s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction. St. Luke\u2019s is a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World\u2019s Best Hospital. The Network\u2019s flagship University Hospital earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from Fortune\/PINC AI 10 years in a row, including in\u00a02021 when it was identified as\u00a0THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY.\u00a0In 2021, St. Luke\u2019s was also identified as one of the 15 Top Health Systems nationally. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN\u2019s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nSam Kennedy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo courtesy of St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network\u00a0(SLUHN) Weight-Loss Surgery Leads to Pregnancy Jessica and Jeffrey Smith of Stroudsburg wondered whether they would ever realize their dream of starting a … Continue reading Weight-Loss Surgery Leads to Pregnancy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/jessica-smith.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=141883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/141884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=141883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=141883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=141883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}