Maternal pre-pregnancy BMI and adverse pregnancy outcomes among Chinese women: Results from the C-ABCS

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate associations between pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and adverse pregnancy outcomes among Chinese pregnant women. A prospective population-based cohort study was performed using data collected as part of the China-Anhui Birth Cohort Study or C-ABCS. A total of 13,121 pregnant women who received the first prenatal visit were enrolled from November 2008 to October 2010. Logistic regression analysis was used to calculate associations between pre-pregnancy BMI and pregnancy outcomes. Results indicated that the increased pre-pregnancy BMI was associated with a number of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as hypertensive disorder (adjusted relative risk (ARR) 2.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.5–3.6), gestational diabetes (ARR 3.5, 95% CI 2.3–5.2), caesarean delivery (ARR 2.0, 95% CI 1.6–2.4), and medically indicated preterm delivery (ARR 1.8, 95% CI 1.1–2.9). Women with pre-pregnancy BMI above the normal range pose an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Keywords::

• Obesity
• overweight
• preterm
• gestational diabetes
• hypertensive disorder

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the China National Key Technology Research and Development Program (2006BAI05A03), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81373012, 30901202), the Doctoral Program of Anhui Medical University (XJ201205) and the Higher Education Department of Anhui Provincial Natural Science Research Project (KJ2011A165).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.