Effects of a weight-gain restriction programme for obese pregnant women on sickness absence and pregnancy benefits

Figures & data

Table I. Comparison of background characteristics for the obese pregnant women.

	Intervention (n = 155) %	Control (n = 193) %	p-value*
Employed at enrolment	64.5	70.5	0.12
Family situation:			0.68
Couple	93.5	91.9
Single	2.6	4.1
Other	3.9	3.5
Not stated	0.0	0.6
Smoking:			0.88
No	91.6	92.4
1–9 per day	5.2	5.2
> 9 per day	3.2	2.3
Alcohol consumption:			0.26
Never/very seldom	99.4	97.7
At most once per week	0.0	1.7
More than once per week	0.0	0.0
Not reported	0.6	0.6

*Chi-squared test.

Table II. Mean number of days of sickness absence benefit and pregnancy benefit for the obese pregnant women.

	Intervention (n = 155) mean (SD)	Control (n = 193) mean (SD)	p-value*
Sick-leave benefit:
25%	1.90 (13.45)	1.03 (8.00)	0.46
50%	4.08 (18.09)	5.03 (20.03)	0.65
75%	0.37 (3.34)	1.36 (7.76)	0.11
100%	19.47 (53.73)	14.74 (38.39)	0.36
Total full days of sickness absence benefit	22.26 (56.00)	18.53 (42.09)	0.48
Total full days of sickness absence benefit†	76.68 (81.89)	53.09 (57.36)	0.1
Pregnancy benefit:
25%	0.00 (0.00)	0.00 (0.00)	‡
50%	2.24 (9.53)	1.54 (7.63)	0.45
75%	0.00 (0.00)	1.14 (7.75)	0.04
100%	11.42 (20.16)	12.53 (20.85)	0.62
Total full days of pregnancy benefit	12.54 (20.08)	14.16 (21.72)	0.48
Total full days of pregnancy benefit†	39.66(13.99)	41.41(15.73)	0.54

*Student's t-test. †Calculated for those women who were employed at start of programme. ‡p-value not calculated.

Table III. Pearson correlations: Enrolment BMI and benefits; gestational weight gain and benefits for the women in the intervention group.

	BMI (n = 155) (p-value)	Weight gain (n = 155) (p-value)
Sick-leave benefit	0.15 (0.06)	–0.05 (0.55)
Pregnancy benefit	0.01 (0.87)	–0.02 (0.78)

Table IV. Subgroups: Top one-third gestational weight gain and bottom one-third weight gain as well as enrolment BMI 30–35 and > 35 for the women in the intervention group.

	Top one-third (n = 50) mean (SD)	Bottom one-third (n = 52) mean (SD)	p-value*	BMI 30–35 (n = 101) mean (SD)	BMI > 35 (n = 54) mean (SD)	p-value*
Total sick-leave benefit	24.0 (60.0)	22.5 (56.6)	0.90	17.4 (45.7)	31.4 (71.0)	0.19
Total pregnancy benefit	11.1 (19.2)	13.1 (20.8)	0.62	12.9 (20.4)	11.8 (19.6)	0.75

*Chi-squared test.