ORCID

0000-0001-7421-3381 (Al-Taiar), 0000-0002-2297-9235 (Sharaf-Alddin)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1111/phn.70045

Publication Title

Public Health Nursing

Volume

Advance online publication

Pages

1-11

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of prepregnancy obesity and overweight, and to identify a set of sociodemographic factors that could guide weight management interventions for women prior to conception.

Design, Sample, and Measurements: Pregnant women (N = 989) were recruited in the Kuwait Birth Cohort Study during the period June 2017 to February 2020. Prepregnancy weight and height were self-reported, while current weight and height were measured in a standardized procedure. Data on sociodemographic factors were collected through face-to-face interviews conducted by a trained data collector. Multinomial logistic regression was used to investigate the association between sociodemographic factors and prepregnancy obesity and overweight.

Results: Among 989 pregnant women (89.26% of the cohort), the prevalence of prepregnancy obesity and overweight was 28.82% (95% CI: 26.08%-31.72%) and 37.92% (95% CI: 34.94%-40.99%), respectively. Only 24 pregnant women (2.43%; 95% CI: 1.63%-3.60%) were underweight prior to pregnancy. Notably, 17.67% of obese and 56.03% of overweight women perceived their weight as normal.

Conclusion: Obesity and overweight prior to pregnancy are extremely high in Kuwait, with more than two-thirds of women affected. Public health interventions targeting obesity in all women, especially those of reproductive age, should be implemented along with lifestyle counseling to optimize prepregnancy weight.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Data Availability

Article states: "Data analyzed in this study will be available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request."

Original Publication Citation

Al-Taiar, A., Ziyab, A. H., Husain, E. A., Mohammad, M. M. Y., Shamsah, M. A., AlAli, N. S., Sharaf-Alddin, R., & Hammoud, M. S. (2025). Prepregnancy overweight and obesity in Kuwait birth cohort study. Public Health Nursing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.70045

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