How Much Weight Gain During Pregnancy?

Women who are in their childbearing years differ in many ways from women who bore children in 1990, when the Institute of Medicine (IOM) last published its guidelines for weight gain during singleton pregnancies (JW Womens Health Nov 29 2007). The childbearing population is now more racially and culturally diverse in the U.S. BMIs of nonpregnant women have risen, and obesity is more common. Women are also becoming pregnant later in life and are more likely to have preexisting conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes. The new IOM recommendations (see table) are based on prepregnancy BMI categories as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) rather than on categories derived from the Metropolitan Life Insurance tables. Moreover, th…