Introduction

Physical changes during pregnancy trigger a positive or negative emotional response to the body image of the future mother. Since this response can affect the health of the mother and the fetus, it is necessary to have valid instruments to evaluate body image in pregnant women.

Objective

To validate in Spanish the Scale of Attitudes towards Pregnancy and Weight Gain in Mexican population.

Method

The study was conducted in two phases: it was culturally adapted to determine the linguistic validity and then its psychometric properties were verified through confirmatory exploratory factor analysis.

Results

Participants included 520 pregnant women over 18 attending prenatal consultation, with a mean age of 23.56 ± 5.89 and with a mean of 33.20 ± 6.69 gestation weeks. The exploratory analysis defined five components that explain 56.04% of the total variance of the 18 items with acceptable internal consistency (α = 78). Factor analysis confirmed five factors (negative attitude towards the increase of gestational weight, positive body image, control of gestational weight, concern over gestational weight and restrictive behavior in response to gestational weight) with adequate fit indices (χ2/gl = 2.57, IFI = .90, CFI = .90, RMSEA = .05 (90% CI [.048, .062], p =.12), SRMR = .05)

Discussion and conclusion

The instrument has good psychometric properties and is recommended as a valid tool for assessing attitudes toward body image in Mexican women during the period of pregnancy.

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