Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Mar:130:103929.
doi: 10.1016/j.midw.2024.103929. Epub 2024 Jan 18.

Gestational weight gain and its association with maternal and neonatal outcomes among pregnant women with normal pre-pregnancy body mass index from a Middle Eastern country

Hakima Aziz Al Shekaili  1 , Iman Al Hashmi  2 , Omar Al Omari  3
Affiliations

Gestational weight gain and its association with maternal and neonatal outcomes among pregnant women with normal pre-pregnancy body mass index from a Middle Eastern country

Hakima Aziz Al Shekaili et al. Midwifery. 2024 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Inappropriate gestational weight gain (GWG) is one of the leading health problems during pregnancy. Little is known about the association of GWG with the pregnancy outcomes among Middle Eastern pregnant women.

Purpose: To examine the relationship between GWG and maternal and neonatal outcomes among pregnant women with normal pre-pregnancy BMI.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted in Oman among 763 healthy women with normal pre-pregnancy BMI between August 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. Maternal and neonatal outcomes were retrieved from participants' medical records using a standardized form. The analytical tools included descriptive statistics and the chi-square test.

Results: Descriptive statistics showed 22.6 % and 21.4 % of the study participants gained weight above or below the guidelines, respectively. The findings from the chi-square test showed a significant association between total GWG and the incidence of emergency caesarean section (p < .01), gestational diabetes mellitus (p < .01), and gestational hypertension (p < .01), macrosomia (p < .01), small for gestational age (p < .01), large for gestational age (p < .01), low birth weight (p < .01), intrauterine growth retardation (p < .01), and preterm birth (p < .01).

Conclusion and implications for practice: Our study found that inappropriate gestational weight gain (GWG) contributes to several adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes. We recommend that Ministries of Health in Middle East and North Africa area includes GWG as a risk factor for pregnancy-related adverse outcomes. Midwives should closely monitor and manage GWG to ensure optimal pregnancy outcomes. In addition, midwives should encourage mothers to maintain GWG within the recommended range using various strategies such as continuous counselling and motivational health promotion interventions.

Keywords: Gestational; Neonatal; Outcomes; Pregnancy; Weight gain.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

LinkOut - more resources