Postpartum maternal weight changes: Implications for military women

Abstract

> Public repenting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing this collection of information. We have completed recruitment, data collection and data entry for this study group of new mothers attending the well-baby clinic at the Naval Medical Center, San Diego. We enrolled more than 2500 eligible women and obtained essential data from 1652 of them. Data on the major endpoint, maternal weight late in the postpartum year, are available for more than 1600 of these women, and longitudinal data, reflecting weight measures during the early, middle and late periods of the postpartum year, are available for 861 women. Approximately 20% of the study participants are active duty women. Women in this study, on average, retained more weight late in the postpartum year than usually reported (about 4 kg in this study compared to means of 1.5 to 2 kg in previous studies). Approximately 25% of women who began pregnancy with normal BMI became overweight after birth; the prevalence of overweight was even higher among certain subgroups. Results so far suggest some social, demographic and behavioral risk factors that appear related to increased postpartum weight retention in both active duty and dependent mothers. Additional analyses in the coming year will contribute more information on factors and behaviors that may increase, or protect against, maternal obesity after pregnancy.