Maternal weight and weight gain in Africans. Its relationship to birth weight.

A prospective study on 600 gravid women, 492 of whom eventually delivered normal singleton babies following uncomplicated pregnancies is described. Maternal weight measurements per gestational age were recorded from the 10th week till delivery in these randomly selected women attending regular antenatal clinic. The purpose of this paper is: to describe the observed changes in maternal weight throughout normal term pregnancy; to see if any relationship exists between maternal weight and gestational age of women entering pregnancy with different weights; and to explain how the weight changes affected the birth weights of their babies. Mean maternal weight gained in pregnancy was found to be 13.3 +/- 4.56 kg for all deliveries. The mean weight gained for mothers who delivered term (37-41 weeks) low birth weight babies (LBW, weight 0-2500 g) was 9.53 +/- 3.69 kg and the mean for mothers who had large for gestational age babies (LGA, birth weight greater than or equal to 3800 g) was 15.97 +/- 2.67 kg and the mean for mothers who had standard or normal weight babies (NW, birth weight 2501-3799 g) was 13.05 +/- 4.86 kg. The change in maternal weight per unit time was found to be constant for all mothers from the 12th week for normal pregnancy till delivery (r = 0.97, P less than 0.01) except in the obese mothers, most of whom had no consistent gain in weight throughout pregnancy (r = -0.32). The mothers who delivered LBW infants gained less in every trimester when compared with the standard (NW). The mothers of LGA babies gained more in every trimester than did the standard.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)