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Women who gain more fat during pregnancy may not have bigger babies: implications for recommended weight gain during pregnancy
Author(s) -
LAWRENCE M.,
MCKILLOP F. M.,
DURNIN J. V. G. A.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
bjog: an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.157
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1471-0528
pISSN - 1470-0328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0528.1991.tb13389.x
Subject(s) - weight gain , pregnancy , obstetrics , medicine , body weight , biology , genetics
Summary. The correlation between infant birthweight and the amount of fat gained during pregnancy (estimated as the change in maternal weight between 10 weeks gestation and 2–3 weeks postpartum) was studied in 115 healthy, parous, urban Scottish housewives. There was very little correlation between these variables ( r = 0.13 , falling to r = 0.07 after birthweight was adjusted for initial maternal weight and length of gestation), i.e., women who gained more fat during their pregnancies did not give birth to heavier babies. This suggests that for most women one of the principal effects of increasing food intake during pregnancy may be to increase maternal fat gain rather than promote fetal growth, and that efforts to increase birthweight by encouraging greater weight gain during pregnancy may be unsuccessful