Gestational Weight Gain among Women at Health Centers in Tehran in 2016

Inappropriate gestational weight gain (GWG) may increase risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. To prevent these risks, determining optimal weight gain is a priority in prenatal care. The objective of this study was to determine the GWG of women referring to health centers for their prenatal care visits in Tehran in 2016.

This cross-sectional study was conducted in Tehran, Iran. The study population included all pregnant women receiving prenatal care visits from April 2016 to March 2017 in 12 health centers affiliated to Shahid Beheshti and Iran Universities of Medical Sciences. The sampling method was census and a total of 232 people were surveyed. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 23 using statistics of frequency, mean and standard deviation. To investigate the relationship between variables, correlation method was used by using Pearson's correlation coefficient at a significance level of 0.05.

The mean (SD) of age of women was 28.6 (5.4) with a range of 18 to 40 years. According to the pre-pregnancy body mass index, among 220 pregnant women, 6 (2.7%) were underweight, 112 (50.9%) were normal, 78 (35.4%) were overweight, and 24 (11%) people were obese. The mean (SD) of GWG was 11.7 (4.3) kilograms and among 177 pregnant women, 76 (42.9%) had GWG within, 55 (31.1%) had GWG below and 46 (26) had GWG above guidelines.

The prevalence of GWG above guidelines was higher in overweight and obese women than underweight and normal women in this study. Therefore, achieving the appropriate weight before pregnancy and close monitoring of weight gain during pregnancy is recommended.