Association of Pregestational BMI and Antenatal Weight Gain With Pregnancy Outcome: A Prospective Observational Cohort Study

Objectives: A prospective observational study to analyze whether optimal weight gain in pregnancy with respect to pregestational body mass index (BMI) can influence pregnancy outcome. Materials and Methods: The study was done in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan, Vivekananda Institute of Medical Sciences, Kolkata over a period of one year. Two hundred early booked (before 10 weeks) singleton pregnant women were involved. According to pregestational BMI, and total antenatal weight gain all women were categorized into groups and the pregnancy outcome was compared in different groups. All the data were statistically analyzed using Chi-square test for categorical variables and analysis of variance (ANOVA) test for continuous variables using the SPSS version16. Results: Analysis shows antenatal weight gain has a statistically significant (P < 0.001) relation with pregestational BMI with a significant increase in antenatal complications and caesarean section associated with obesity but not with the total antenatal weight gain. However the birth weight of the baby has a significant relation with total antenatal weight gain. Conclusion: Our study concluded that most of the Indian women do not have weight gain as per Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendation, with increased risk of medical and surgical complications in obese group of women.