Background:
The increasing prevalence of obesity in young women is a major public health concern. Few data are available concerning the epidemiology of malnutrition especially obesity among pregnant women in the developing countries. A cross sectional study was conducted at Khartoum hospital during February-April 2008, to investigate prevalence of underweight, obesity, and to identify contemporary socio-demographic predictors for obesity among term pregnant women in Khartoum Hospital, Sudan. After taking an informed consent, a structured questionnaire was administered to each woman to gather information on educational level, age and parity. Maternal weight and height were measured and expressed as body mass index (BMI – weight (kg)/ height (m) 2).FindingsOut of 1690 term pregnant women, 628 (37.1%) were primigravidae, 926 (54.8%) had [greater than or equal to] secondary educational level (minimum of 8 years) and 1445 (85.5%) were housewives. The mean (SD) of the age and parity were 27.2 (6.3) years and 2.0 (2.1) respectively. Out of these 1690 women, 94(5.5%) were underweight (BMI of [less than or equal to] 19.9 Kg/m2), 603 (35.6%) were overweight (BMI of 25 – 29.9 Kg/m2) and 328 (19.4%) were obese (BMI of [greater than or equal to] 30 Kg/m2).In multivariate analyses, obesity was positively associated with age (OR=1.2, 95% CI =1.01.1; P< 0.001), and with women’s education (OR= 1.8, 95% CI = 1.22.7; P= 0.001). Obesity was positively associated with parity in univariate analyses only (OR= 1.1, 95% CI = 1.01.2; P= 0.02)
Conclusion:
The high prevalence of obesity in these pregnant women represents a competing public health problem in Sudan. More research is needed.