Tori ME, Gosdin L, Shih Y, Hung P, Li X, Liu J. Association of COVID-19 pandemic societal closures with gestational weight gain among women in South Carolina, 2018-2021.
Ann Epidemiol 2024;
91:51-57. [PMID:
38331235 PMCID:
PMC11332072 DOI:
10.1016/j.annepidem.2024.02.002]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2023] [Revised: 01/31/2024] [Accepted: 02/04/2024] [Indexed: 02/10/2024]
Abstract
PURPOSE
During the early COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in weight gain among the general population was observed; however, gestational weight gain (GWG) was not thoroughly evaluated. We evaluated changes in GWG during the pandemic closures in South Carolina.
METHODS
We used live, singleton birth records to compare GWG outcomes among three pregnancy groups occurring before (January 2018-February 2020), during (March-May 2020), and after (June 2020-December 2021) pandemic closures. GWG categories were defined by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations. We used multinomial logistic regression models to calculate prevalence ratios (PRs) of GWG categories stratified by prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) category.
RESULTS
We analyzed 177,571 birth records. Women with normal weight (n = 64,491, 36%) had a slightly lower prevalence of excessive GWG during and after the pandemic closures (PR 0.94; 95% CI: 0.91-0.98 and PR 0.95; 95% CI: 0.93-0.98, respectively). We observed no changes in GWG patterns for women with overweight and obesity.
CONCLUSIONS
We found limited changes in GWG patterns for a subset of pregnant women during and after pandemic closures, compared with prepandemic period in South Carolina, countering findings of weight changes among the general population.
Collapse