Epidemiology of underweight and overweight-obesity among term pregnant Sudanese women

Duria A Rayis,Ameer O Abbaker,Yasir Salih,Tayseer E Diab,Ishag Adam

doi:10.1186/1756-0500-3-327

Duria A Rayis, Ameer O Abbaker + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-3-327

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Journal: BMC research notes	Publication Date: Dec 1, 2010
Citations: 33	License type: CC BY 2.0

Affiliation: University of Khartoum, Al-Neelain University

Abstract

BackgroundThe increasing prevalence of obesity in young women is a major public health concern. Few data are available concerning the epidemiology of malnutrition especially obesity among pregnant women in the developing countries. A cross sectional study was conducted at Khartoum hospital during February-April 2008, to investigate prevalence of underweight, obesity, and to identify contemporary socio-demographic predictors for obesity among term pregnant women in Khartoum Hospital, Sudan. After taking an informed consent, a structured questionnaire was administered to each woman to gather information on educational level, age and parity. Maternal weight and height were measured and expressed as body mass index (BMI - weight (kg)/height (m) 2).FindingsOut of 1690 term pregnant women, 628 (37.1%) were primigravidae, 926 (54.8%) had ≥ secondary educational level (minimum of 8 years) and 1445 (85.5%) were housewives. The mean (SD) of the age and parity were 27.2 (6.3) years and 2.0 (2.1) respectively. Out of these 1690 women, 94(5.5%) were underweight (BMI of ≤ 19.9 Kg/m2), 603 (35.6%) were overweight (BMI of 25 - 29.9 Kg/m2) and 328 (19.4%) were obese (BMI of ≥ 30 Kg/m2).In multivariate analyses, obesity was positively associated with age (OR = 1.2, 95% CI = 1.0-1.1; P< 0.001), and with women's education (OR = 1.8, 95% CI = 1.2-2.7; P = 0.001). Obesity was positively associated with parity in univariate analyses only (OR = 1.1, 95% CI = 1.0-1.2; P = 0.02)ConclusionThe high prevalence of obesity in these pregnant women represents a competing public health problem in Sudan. More research is needed.

Highlights

Many developing countries are currently affected by high rates of overweight that in some cases surpass underweight as a public health nutritional problem
Increasing body mass index (BMI) is associated with increased incidence of pre-eclampsia, gestational hypertension, macrosomia, induction of labor and caesarean delivery [3]
There was no significant difference in the number of housewives between the BMI subgroups, table 1

Summary

Introduction

Many developing countries are currently affected by high rates of overweight that in some cases surpass underweight as a public health nutritional problem. In many developing countries e.g. Bangladesh, Nepal, and India, the prevalence of overweight-obesity in women of reproductive age has risen steadily in the last two decades [1]. In the case of Africa, recent analyses of national data on body mass index (BMI) from women showed that, the prevalence of overweight-obesity exceeded that of underweight [2]. The current study was conducted to investigate prevalence of underweight, overweight and obesity among term pregnant women in Khartoum teaching hospital, Sudan. Few data are available concerning the epidemiology of malnutrition especially obesity among pregnant women in the developing countries. Maternal weight and height were measured and expressed as body mass index (BMI - weight (kg)/height (m) 2)

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Discussion

Conclusion