Abstract
Pregnancy increases the risk of being overweight at a later time period, particularly when there is excessive gestational weight gain. There remains a paucity of data into the effect of low glycaemic index (GI) pregnancy interventions postpartum. Aim: To examine the impact of a low glycaemic index diet during pregnancy on maternal diet 3 months postpartum. Methodology: This analysis examined the diet, weight and lifestyle of 460 participants of the ROLO study 3 months postpartum. Questionnaires on weight, physical activity, breastfeeding, supplement use, food label reading and dietary habits were completed. Results: The intervention group had significantly greater weight loss from pre-pregnancy to 3 months postpartum than the control group (1.3 vs. 0.1 kg, p = 0.022). The intervention group reported greater numbers following a low glycaemic index diet (p < 0.001) and reading food labels (p = 0.032) and had a lower glycaemic load (GL) (128 vs. 145, p = 0.014) but not GI (55 vs. 55, p = 0.809) than controls. Conclusions: Low GI dietary interventions in pregnancy result in improved health-behaviours and continued reported compliance at 3 months postpartum possibly through lower dietary GL as a result of portion control. Greater levels of weight loss from pre-pregnancy to 3 months postpartum in the intervention group may have important positive implications for overweight and obesity.
Highlights
Low glycaemic index (GI) diet in pregnancy has been found by some studies to reduce hyperglycaemia and risk of macrosomia [1,2,3]
Participants who returned questionnaires were significantly older (33.01 ± 3.91 vs. 31.96 ± 4.55 years, p = 0.001) and had a significantly higher pre-pregnancy weight (75.0 ± 14.9 vs. 72.6 ± 13.4 kg, p = 0.026) than those that did not; there was no difference in gestational weight gain (p = 0.290) or membership of the intervention group (p = 0.641) between them
The finding that the reduction in gestational weight gain observed in pregnancy [9] persisted at 3 months postpartum is likely to have an impact on maternal obesity in later years
Summary
Low glycaemic index (GI) diet in pregnancy has been found by some studies to reduce hyperglycaemia and risk of macrosomia [1,2,3]. The ROLO (Randomised cOntrol trial of LOw glycaemic index diet versus no dietary intervention to prevent recurrence of fetal macrosomia) study was the first large randomised control trial to examine the effect of low GI diet in pregnancy on maternal and infant outcomes [4]. The ROLO study examined secondogravid women who had previously given birth to a macrosomic (>4 kg) infant. 800 women were randomised to receive either low glycaemic index dietary advice or usual antenatal care which did not include dietary advice in an attempt to reduce postprandial peaks in blood glucose [4].
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