Publication:

Fetomaternal outcome in overweight and obese pregnant women in tertiary care hospital in Northeast India

Background The global prevalence of overweight and obesity in 2014 was 39% and 13% respectively. Underweight is defined as BMI less than 18.5, normal weight as BMI from 18.5 to 24.9, overweight from 25 to 29.5 and obese as BMI of 30 or greater. Obesity is critically important to maternal and fetal health during the perinatal period.  Obesity increases the risks of gestational diabetes mellitus, overt diabetes, pregnancy induced hypertension including gestational hypertension, pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, thrombo-embolic phenomena, infections, miscarriage.

Methods A prospective cohort study was carried out in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, RIMS, Imphal, Manipur for duration of two years beginning from July, 2019 to August, 2021. Consecutive sampling method was followed to include 38 cases and 38 controls and analysis was done.

Results Comparison of pre-eclampsia among the study groups showed 8 (21.1%) of exposed group and 1 (2.6%) of the non-exposed group developed preeclampsia. The association between overweight and obesity with GDM. 9 (23.7%) of overweight and obese women while 1 (2.6%) of non-obese women developed GDM. The distribution of neonates requiring neonatal resuscitation among the two study groups showed that 14 (36.84%) of neonates born by overweight and obese women required resuscitation as against 5 (13.16%) of neonates born by non-obese women.

Conclusions It was evident from the study that maternal obesity has adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Maternal obesity was strongly associated with antenatal complications like gestational diabetes mellitus, preeclampsia and increase in need for newborn resuscitation.