Assessment of maternal obesity and perinatal consequences

By, Dardan BAFTIU, MD, Erjona ABAZAJ, Prof. Asoc.

Abstract

Introduction: Nowadays the prevalence of obesity especially maternal obesity prevalence has increased substantially and provides a major challenge to public health. Besides that, weight gain during pregnancy may result in negative outcomes for women and neonatal. Objective: We evaluated maternal obesity prevalence and outcomes during and after pregnancy at the Regional Hospital of Ferizaj. Methods: A total of 258 pregnant females who delivered their babies at the Regional Hospital of Ferizaj between March 2018 and March 2020 were included in this study. Based on the body mass index (BMI) of maternal, the patients were divided into groups: underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese I, obese II, and obese III/ morbid obese. The effects of obesity on fetal and maternal outcomes were investigated. Results: Overall 258 pregnant women were included in our study, the average age was 28.7±3.4, with min age of 19 and a max of 41 years old. The prevalence of BMI over the normal weight among pregnant women resulted in 70.5% (182/258). Most of the maternal were overweight at 29.6% (54/182), obese class I at 27.5% (50/182), obese class II at 25.3% (46/182), and obese class III at 17.6% (32/182), with a significant association between them χ2=2.8, p<0.02. Adverse obese maternal effects and perinatal consequences or other problems were significantly more frequent than in normal-weight maternal. Besides that, in this study, the low-birth-weight infant rate was higher in the low BMI pregnant cases with a strong significant association (χ2=37.8 p value < 0.0001). Conclusion: The finding of this study conclude that obesity plays a significant risk factor and it is a strong association with complications in pregnancy and newborns. Further studies are recommended to explore the obesity problems to develop guidelines and strategies and to minimize the adverse effect of this risk for developing maternal and newborn complications.

How to cite: Baftiu, D., & Abazaj, E. (2022). Assessment of maternal obesity and perinatal consequences. Medicus, 6(2), 81–88.

https://doi.org/10.58944/zwnb9780