Objective: To evaluate the effect of pre-pregnancy body mass index on maternal and perinatal outcomes among adolescent pregnant women.
Methods: We conducted this prospective cross-sectional study on 365 singleton adolescent pregnancies (aged between 16 and 20 years) at a Maternity Hospital, between December 2014 and March 2015. We divided participants into two groups based on pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI): overweight and obese adolescent (BMI at or above 25.0 kg/m) and normal weight (BMI between 18.5 and 24.99 kg/m) adolescent. We used multivariate analysis to evaluate the association of the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes and pre-pregnancy BMI.
Results: The prevalence of maternal overweight/obesity and normal weight was 34.6% (n = 80) and 65.4% (n = 261) in the study population, respectively. Compared with normal-weight teens (n = 234), overweight/obese teens (n = 71) were at higher risk for cesarean delivery (odds ratio [OR] 0.7, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.4-1.4), preeclampsia (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.02-0.9) and small of gestational age (odds ratio [OR] 0.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.1-0.9).
Conclusion: BMI increased during pre-pregnancy could be an important preventable risk factor for poor obstetric complications in adolescent pregnancies, and for these patients prevention strategies (e.g., nutritional counseling, weight-loss, regular physical activity) for obesity are recommended before getting pregnant.
Keywords: Adolescent pregnancy; adverse perinatal outcomes; increased body mass index; overweight and obesity.