imiting weight gain in overweight and obese women during pregnancy to improve health outcomes: a randomised trial

We conducted a study to determine whether a dietary and lifestyle intervention during pregnancy for women who were overweight or obese would improve pregnancy and birth outcomes. Overweight and obesity in pregnancy increases risks of some adverse outcomes for women and their babies. These risks include caesarean birth, gestational diabetes, high infant birth weight which in turn increases the risk of childhood obesity. This multicentre randomised trial was conducted in three public maternity hospitals across South Australia. The participants were women with a singleton pregnancy, between 10+0 and 20+0 weeks’ of pregnancy, and had a BMI of 25 kg/m2 or more. 2212 women were enrolled, 1108 of the women were randomised to a comprehensive dietary and lifestyle intervention delivered by research staff; 1104 were randomised to standard care and received pregnancy care according to local guidelines, which did not include such information. For women who were overweight or obese, the antenatal lifestyle advice used in this study did not reduce the risk delivering a baby being born with birthweight larger than expected for the number of weeks of pregnancy when it was born and the baby’s sex. Although the women in the dietary and lifestyle intervention group improved the quality of their diet and increased their physical activity, they gained a similar amount of weight during pregnancy as women in the control arm of the study. Women in the intervention arm of the study were less likely