Total gestational weight change and rate of change in pregnant Taiwanese women

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to estimate and compare total gestational weight gain (GWG) and the trimester-specific mean rate of GWG based on pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) as recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

Materials and methods: The medical records of 470 participants who had received antenatal care at medical teaching hospitals in northern Taiwan and who delivered after 37 weeks of pregnancy were analyzed.

Results: The mean total GWG was 13.84 (SD = 4.33) kg, and nearly 60% of women had not complied with the current IOM recommendations for total GWG. The best-fit model for the mean GWG rate revealed that all groups had a GWG rate of zero in the 1st trimester and had an equivalent mean GWG rate in the 3rd trimester. Women tended to have excessive weekly GWG in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters, and women with a higher pre-pregnancy BMI were more likely to have excessive weekly GWG in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Moreover, the plurality of normal-weight (30.4%), overweight (75.8%) and obese (62.5%) women experienced excessive weekly weight gain during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Few women met the recommended 2009 IOM weekly weight-gain guidelines in the 2nd trimester, but more met them in the 3rd trimester.

Conclusion: These findings indicate that most pregnant Taiwanese women currently exceed the total and weekly GWG recommendations of the IOM. More specifically, weekly GWG in excess of the IOM recommendations is common among normal-weight, overweight and obese women.

Keywords: Body mass index; Body weight; Gestational weight gain; Hierarchical linear modeling; Pregnancy.