Impact of female obesity and assisted reproduction on uncomplicated pregnancies and healthy births: a study of 428  336 births in Flanders

We examined the association of BMI and MAR with the following composite primary outcomes: ‘uncomplicated pregnancy and birth’ and ‘healthy baby’. We conducted Poisson regression and adjus ted for maternal age, parity, gestational weight gain, smoking and previous caesarean section.MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCEIn our study, 36.80% (n  = 157 623) of women had an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth according to the definition used. The predicted probability of having an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth for women with a BMI of 25 kg/m2 who conceived spontaneously was 0.33 (0.32 to 0.35), while it was 0.28 (0.24 to 0.32) for women who used hormonal stimulation and 0.26 (0.22 to 0.29) for women who used IVF/ICSI. This probability reduced with increasing BMI category for both MAR and non-MAR users. For women with a BMI of 30  kg/m2, the predicted probability of having an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth was 0.28 (0.26 to 0.30) for women who conceived spontaneously, and 0.22 (0.16 to 0.29) and 0.20 (0.14 to 0.26) for women who used hormonal stimulation only or IVF/ICSI, respectively. The predicted probability of having a healthy baby for women with a BMI of 25  kg/m2 who conceived spontaneously was 0.92 (0.91 to 0.93), 0.89 (0.87 to 0.92) for women who used hormonal stimulation only and 0.85 (0.84 to 0.87) for women who used IVF/ICSI.LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTIONThe database did not include data on socio-economic status, pre-pregnancy morbidities and pate...
Source: Human Reproduction - Category: Reproduction Medicine Source Type: research