Gestational weight gain and its related social and demographic factors in health care settings of rural and urban areas in northwest Iran

ABSTRACT

The current study was aimed to evaluate gestational weight gain and its socio-demographic determinants among pregnant women in north-west of Iran. In the current cross-sectional study, four hundred eighty one pregnant women aged 26.12 ± 7.45 years were enrolled. Data on pre-pregnancy weight, height, age, educational attainment, parity, household size, hemoglobin status and total pregnancy weight gain were extracted from routine health center records. The pregnant women were categorized based on their pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) as underweight, normal weight and overweight or obese according to the 2009 Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations. Participants were also classified according to their educational level into three ‘some school’, ‘high school’ and ‘college’ groups. Gestational weight gain in 27.6% of pregnant women was in normal IOM recommended range; while, weight gain in 49% and 23.2% of pregnant women was below and above recommended range respectively. Women with high educational attainment (≥12 years) have significantly higher weight gain compared with low-educated women (<12 years) (P < 0.001). Age was in negative relationship with gestational weigh gain even after adjusting for confounder effects of residency, educational attainment and household size (r = 0.2, P < 0.001). Our data showed a high prevalence of abnormal gestational weight gain in pregnant women attending to public health centers in northwest of Iran. Moreover educational level, parity and age were significant determinants of gestational weight gain in pregnancy. Special attention should be focused on prenatal nutritional status and health care programs in current health care services in Iran.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• gestational weight gain
• parity
• pregnancy

Acknowledgments

The author thanks all of the staff of the health care centers who helped in collecting these data.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that there are no competing interests.