Pregnant Women's Perception and Knowledge of the Impact of Obesity on Perinatal Outcomes - A Cross-Sectional Study

The prevalence of obesity and overweight has been rapidly increasing and is significantlyhigher among adult females in the Arab States. The aim of the present study was to explore pregnantEmirati women’s perception of their weight, their knowledge of the healthy gestational weightgain, and the possible weight-related pregnancy complications. A total of 526 self-administeredquestionnaires were obtained with a response rate of 72%. The majority (81.8%, n= 429) enteredpregnancy as overweight or obese. The percentage of pregnant women who underestimated theirweight category was 12.1% in normal weight participants, 48.9% in overweight participants, and73.5% in obese participants (p< 0.001). The overweight and obese participants were 13 times morelikely to underestimate their weight status and 3.6 times more likely to correctly select their healthygestational weight gain. Women’s awareness of pregnancy-related complications due to weightvaried from 80.3% for diabetes to 44.5% for fetal complications; their awareness of breastfeedingdifficulty was the lowest at 2.5%. Moreover, there was a misconception about personal BMI and theappropriate range for gestational weight gain (GWG). Healthy lifestyle counselling urgently needs tobe addressed in preventative health programs such as pre-marital and preconception counselling.