This is the beginning of a series of blogs about pregnancy and weight gain. Pregnancy is not a time to go hog wild eating whatever you want. There are guidelines to how much weight you should gain, and they vary with what your pre pregnancy weight is.
For those with no attention span (and can’t read past a twitter title), the findings were
- the higher your BMI, (underweight–>normal–>overweight–>obese), and
- the more your weight gain past recommendations during pregnancy,
the higher your chance of high blood pressure during pregnancy. (High blood pressure during pregnancy is bad.)
Terms:
BMI= Body mass index.
PPBMI= Your prepregnancy BMI
IOM= Institute of Medicine. It has guidelines recommending how much you should gain. Those will be posted in another blog, but if you are normal weight, you average weight gain during pregnancy should be around 30 pounds, if obese around 15 pounds.
Study: American Journal of Perinatology Jan 2011
- Evaluated new Institute of Medicine weight gain guidelines within each PPBMI category
- Patients with singleton term deliveries
- Women without history of heart disease, diabetes, or pregnancy high blood pressure
- Pregnancy high blood pressure rates were compared overall and within each PPBMI group
- Looked at women gaining less than recommendations, within recommendations, and above recommendations
FINDINGS:
- High blood pressure during pregnancy was higher when your prepregancy BMI was higher (5.0%, 5.4%, and 10.8% for less than, within, and above recommendation groups, respectively ( P < 0.001).
- Above recommended weight gain resulted in higher high blood pressure incidence within each PPBMI category (underweight 7.6%, normal weight 6.2%, overweight 12.4%, and obese 17.0%), reaching statistical significance in all but the underweight PPBMI group.
- Excessive weight gain above established guidelines was associated with increased rates of high blood pressure.
- Regardless of PPBMI, women should be counseled to avoid excessive weight gain during pregnancy.
So if you are considering getting pregnant, or you are pregnant, look at your BMI and weight gain. It is important for your health and your pregnancy. In general, as a plastic surgeon who specializes in the mommy makeover, I see women who don’t fare well with pregnancy. Weight gain is part of that issue.