Abstract

ROSELLO-SOBERON, María Emilia; FUENTES-CHAPARRO, Laiza; ALVARADO-ARAGON, Julio  and  CASANUEVA, Esther. Maternal nutritional status, fetal growth in twin pregnancies and perinatal outcome. Perinatol. Reprod. Hum. [online]. 2006, vol.20, n.1-3, pp.19-26. ISSN 2524-1710.

Objetive: To determine the effect of maternal nutritional status on fetal growth in twin pregnancies with good perinatal outcome. Material y methods: A cohort conformed by 39 healthy pregnant women with 20 weeks of gestation or less(19 with twin pregnancy (TP)and 20 with singleton pregnancy (SP)). Every four weeks height, weight, uterine fundus height (UFH)and resting energy expenditure (REE) were measured. General Lineal Models for repeated measures were used to evaluate longitudinal changes in body weight, REE, and UFH at 20, 24, 28, and 32 weeks of pregnancy (within subjects) The group was divided by pregnancy type or BMI (< 25, and > 25) (between subjects) in order to evaluate their effect on weight, uterine fundus height and REE changes. Results: The successful deliveries were uses for the analysis (10TP as cases and 11 SP as controls). Weight gain increased significantly between 0 and 32 weeks of gestation with an interaction between gestational age and prepregnancy body mass index (pBMI) (p < 0.05). The UFH also increased significantly during gestation (p < 0.001); this increase was dependant on pregnancy type (p < 0.001) and it was not affected by the pBMI (p > 0.05). REE showed a linear increase (p < 0.05) that depended on the pBMI (p < 0.05) but not on pregnancy type (p > 0.05). When the REE/kg was analyzed, the weight showed a lower energy expenditure per kg in overweight women (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Maternal nutritional determining factors from 20 to 32 weeks of gestation depends on the pBMI and did not depend on pregnancy type, while fetal growth did.

Keywords : Twin pregnancy; singleton pregnancy; pregestational body mass index; reting energy expenditure; uterine fundus hight.