Assessment of postpartum weight maintenance and its association with maternal functional status during 6 months after childbirth

Abstract

Introduction: Childbirth causes increasing weight between 0.4 to 1.8 kg according woman's age. Changes in life as a result of pregnancy and childbirth result in shifting in mothers operations and some can't handle taking care of their infant even in third month and don’t start housework and social activities. According to the results of researches about activity subtraction of fat people, aim of this study is to consider weight retentionand its relation with mothers' functional state in 6 months after childbirth. Methods: This cross sectional research has been done 6 months after delivery on 307 in Ardabil, 2016. Weight retention was measured by minus weight in 10th-12th week of pregnancy and weight in 6 month after childbirth. Weighting process was done by a similar person in each time. Data gathering tools in this research were included socio demographic and functional status questionnaire. Results: three hundred seven women participated in this study from May to August 2016. The mean (SD) Body Mass Index was 25.58(4.47). The mean (SD) weight retention 6 months after delivery was 0.5(9.99) kg. Out of job subdomain of functional status, others, including household activities (p=0.05), social and community activities (p=0.042), infant care activities (p= 0.009) and self-care activities (p<0.001) had significant correlation with weight retention. Conclusion: Studied women had acceptable weight retention 6 months after delivery. In present study there is a significant and inverse correlation between all functional status subdomains (except job). In the way that more weight retention caused less points in each four subdomains.

Keywords

• obesity
• weight retention
• functional status
• delivery