Assessment of the nutritional status of pregnant women by weight for height and week of pregnancy - abstract

ABSTRACT

Assessment of the nutritional status of pregnant women by anthropometry presents obvious difficulties. The weight at a given stage depends on the woman's height, her pre-pregnant weight and the week of pregnancy. A reference table of weight for height by week of pregnancy has been devised, based on the premises that the average increment of weight during pregnancy is 20 percent of the pre-pregnant weight and that almost all the increment takes place linearly during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. The table developed on theoretical grounds has been tested with retrospective data from Dominica. The preliminary results show a good correlation between the weight for height at different stages of pregnancy as a percentage of the reference table and the birth weight of the children. This type of reference table is, in our opinion, highly necessary as a simple tool to assess the nutritional status of pregnant women and, within limits, to "predict" the chances of delivering a low birth weight infant (AU)