Pre-pregnancy maternal BMI as predictor of neonatal birth weight

BMI is a tool to measure maternal nutritional status. Maternal malnutrition is frequently reported health problem especially during child bearing age and effects neonatal birth weight.

To determine relationship between prepregnancy maternal BMI and neonatal birth weight.

Prospective, cross sectional study conducted in Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan over a period of 1 year including 2766 mother-neonate pairs. All full term, live born neonates of both gender in early neonatal period (<72 hours) with documented maternal pre-pregnancy and/or first trimester BMI were enrolled. Data analysis using SPSS version 20, was performed.

Data analysis of 2766 mother-neonates pairs showed that there were 32.9% overweight and 16.5% obese mothers. More than two third of all overweight and obese mothers were of age group between 26-35 years. Diabetes mellitus, hypertension, medical illness, uterine malformations and caesarean mode of delivery were more prevalent in obese mothers as 22.8%, 10.1%, 13.2%, 2.6% and 75.4% respectively. Mean birth weight, length and OFC increased with increasing maternal BMI. Comparing for normal weight mothers, underweight mothers were at increased risk of low birth weight (p< 0.01) and low risk of macrosomic neonates (p<0.01). However overweight and obese mothers were comparable to normal weight mothers for delivering macrosomic neonates (p 0.89 and p 0.66 respectively).

Our study highlights that direct relationship exists between maternal BMI and neonatal birth weight.