Original researchWeight gain in women of normal weight before pregnancy: complications in pregnancy or delivery and birth outcome☆
Section snippets
Materials and methods
The target group included women with normal weight before pregnancy (n = 615) who were randomly selected within 1 year (1998), according to the study participation criteria, for information on prepregnancy, pregnancy, and delivery factors as well as birth outcome. All were healthy before pregnancy and had no history of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, or thyroid problems. They were 20–40 years old, had a prepregnant body mass index of 19.5–25.5 kg/m2 and delivered singleton
Results
Table 1 gives maternal and neonatal characteristics. Of the women, 61% were parous, 9% were single, and 17% were smokers. There were 162 women (26.4%) who developed complications, of whom one-third in pregnancy (n = 56) and two-thirds at delivery (n = 106). Figure 1 shows the proportion of women with pregnancy-delivery complications within 2-kg intervals of weight gain. Table 2 shows characteristics and neonatal size among women without complications and in three groups: complications in
Discussion
The frequency of pregnancy-delivery complications for women of normal weight before pregnancy, in a population with high gestational weight gain and birth weight, was highest among women gaining more than 20.0 kg in pregnancy. On average, the women gained 16.8 kg, which is just above the upper limit of weight gain recommended by the IOM for women of normal weight before pregnancy (11.5–16.0 kg).26 The average weight gain, as a proportion of the women’s weight before pregnancy, was 27%. These
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Supported by the Fund for Research and Education, the Research Fund at the University of Iceland, and the Icelandic Ministry of Agriculture.