Experiences of Pregnant Women With Obesity

To explore how pregnant women with obesity feel about their bodies before and during pregnancy.

Qualitative descriptive design.

Obstetric and gynecologic offices in a rural setting in Maryland that employed physicians and midwives as prenatal care providers.

A purposive sampling technique was used to recruit a sample of 20 women. Inclusion criteria were pregnant women ages 18 to 35 years with a prepregnancy body mass index of greater than 30 kg/m², in the third trimester of the pregnancy (28-40 weeks gestation), and receiving regular prenatal care from a licensed provider.

A typology analysis chart was used to group participants' responses from their interviews in the areas of positive or negative feelings regarding their prepregnancy body and weight, and positive or negative feelings regarding their pregnant body.

Data were analyzed using a four-square matrix by identifying those participants who felt positive regarding their prepregnancy body/weight and pregnant body (n = 6), felt negative regarding their prepregnancy body/weight and pregnant body (n = 3), felt negative regarding their prepregnant body but positive regarding their pregnant body (n = 8), and felt positive regarding their prepregnant body but negative about their pregnant body (n = 3).

Pregnancy had allowed many of the women to gain a sense of achievement, where the growth of the fetus and subsequent weight gain were seen as positive attributes, and they embraced the functionality of their bodies.