Pregnant women with extreme BMI are more likely to develop maternal complications

A collaborative study highlights the problems a pregnant woman might face if she has very high or very low BMI. The study was conducted by researchers from the university of Edinburgh and university of Aberdeen. The researchers used data from the routine obstetric records in Scotland from 2003 to 2010. The study focused on finding out the impact of a pregnant woman’s BNI on clinical complications and the number of hospital admissions as well as healthcare cost incurred by that woman. In total 109,592 pregnant women took part in the study. They were grouped in 5 BMI categories, ranging from underweight to severely obese. The data analysis showed that with the increase in BMI risk of maternal complication also increased. The additional hospitalization cost for women with high or low BMI were also more in comparison to the cost incurred by an woman of normal weight.