Optimal gestational weight gain in Chinese pregnant women by Chinese-specific BMI categories: a multicentre prospective cohort study

Objective: To establish optimal gestational weight gain (GWG) in Chinese pregnant women by Chinese-specific BMI categories and compare the new recommendations with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2009 guidelines. Design: Multicentre, prospective cohort study. Unconditional logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the OR, 95 % CI and the predicted probabilities of adverse pregnancy outcomes. The optimal GWG range was defined as the range that did not exceed a 1 % increase from the lowest predicted probability in each pre-pregnancy BMI group. Setting: From nine cities in mainland China. Participants: A total of 3731 women with singleton pregnancy were recruited from April 2013 to December 2014. Results: The optimal GWG (ranges) by Chinese-specific BMI was 15 center dot 0 (12 center dot 8-17 center dot 1), 14 center dot 2 (12 center dot 1-16 center dot 4) and 12 center dot 6 (10 center dot 4-14 center dot 9) kg for underweight, normal weight and overweight pregnant women, respectively. Inappropriate GWG was associated with several adverse pregnancy outcomes. Compared with women gaining weight within our proposed recommendations, women with excessive GWG had higher risk for macrosomia, large for gestational age and caesarean section, whereas those with inadequate GWG had higher risk for low birth weight, small for gestational age and preterm delivery. The comparison between our proposed recommendations and IOM 2009 guidelines showed that our recommendations were comparable with the IOM 2009 guidelines and could well predict the risk of several adverse pregnancy outcomes. Conclusions: Inappropriate GWG was associated with higher risk of several adverse pregnancy outcomes. Optimal GWG recommendations proposed in the present study could be applied to Chinese pregnant women.