Protective effect of medium-high socioeconomic level on nutritional status of pregnant women in Córdoba, 2021-2022.

Abstract

Socioeconomic factors can modulate nutritional status before and during pregnancy. Likewise, a high weight gain during pregnancy has been associated with the development of pathologies in the short and long term, in women and their offspring. It was proposed to evaluate the association between socioeconomic level (SL) and nutritional status in pregnant women in Córdoba, Argentina (2021-2022). Recently, a cohort of pregnant women residing in the city of Córdoba has been initiated.

The 187 women enrolled to date completed a socio demographic survey. Data were collected on pre-pregnancy and current nutritional status. SL ("low"/"medium-high"), pregestational nutritional status (without/with overweight according to body mass index [BMI]-WHO classification), weight gain for gestational age (adequate/excessive gain according to the National Academy of Sciences), parity (has children/no children), and gestational age were the variables of analysis. Chi-square test was applied to assess the association between weight gain for gestational age and SL. Binomial logistic regression models (outcome: "low-adequate" / "high" weight gain) were fitted including SL, age, gestational age and parity as covariates. All analyses were performed with Stata V17 stratifying by pregestational nutritional status.

In women with healthy pregestational BMI, weight gain was inversely associated with SL. It was observed that having medium-high SL was associated with a lower occurrence of high weight gain during pregnancy (OR 0.28; 95% CI 0.11-0.70; p value=0.007), while those women who were already pregestational overweight, SL was not associated with weight gain (OR 0.49; 95% CI 0.17-1.36; p value=0.173).

It is concluded that medium-high SL exerts a protective effect on weight gain during pregnancy in those women who had a healthy BMI. However, this protective effect during pregnancy is not sufficient in those women who were overweight earlier in life.