Maternal Obesity: A Global Health Problem and Its Implications on Maternal and Fetal Health

Objective: to compare maternal complications and labor outcome in obese and non–obese women.materials and methods: it is a retrospective comparative study conducted at the department of obstetricsand gynecology, unit 1, civil hospital, karachi from december 2008 to december 2009. a sample sizeof 220 gravid women is selected by non probability convenience sampling technique. in these 110obese women as cases was compared with 110 non–obese women as controls, booked at <20 weeksof gestation. data were collected regarding maternal complication, mode of delivery and neonataloutcome by trained medical officers. data were entered and analyzed by spss version 11.0 throughdescriptive analysis, chi–square test and independent sample t test. the p–value of <0.05 wasconsidered significant.results: pregnancy induced hypertension was present in 9 (8.2%) women in control group and 21 (19.1%)in cases (p=0.01). gestational diabetes was seen in one (0.9%) in control compared to 8 (7.3%) in obesewomen (p=0.01). obese women were found to be at increased risk of caesarean section [17 (15.5%)vs. 39 (35.4%), p=0.002]. apgar score at 1 and 10 minute were lower in cases compared to controls(p=0.0001).conclusion: obese women are at increased risk of pregnancy induced obesity and associated with anincreased risk of hypertension, gestational diabetes mellitus, thromboembolic disease and urinary tractinfection.