Weight gain in pregnancy and infant birthweight after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: an interrupted time series analysis

Abstract

Background

Increased weight gain and decreased physical activity have been reported in some populations since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but this has not been well characterized in pregnant populations.

Objectives

Our objective was to characterize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated countermeasures on pregnancy weight gain and infant birthweight in a US cohort.

Methods

Washington State pregnancies and births (1 January, 2016 to 28 December, 2020) from a multihospital quality improvement organization were examined for pregnancy weight gain, pregnancy weight gain z-score adjusted for pregestational BMI and gestational age, and infant birthweight z-score, using an interrupted time series design that controls for underlying time trends. We used mixed-effect linear regression models, controlled for seasonality and clustered at the hospital level, to model the weekly time trends and changes on 23 March, 2020, the onset of local COVID-19 countermeasures.

Results

Our analysis included 77,411 pregnant people and 104,936 infants with complete outcome data. The mean pregnancy weight gain was 12.1 kg ( z-score: −0.14) during the prepandemic time period (March to December 2019) and increased to 12.4 kg ( z-score: −0.09) after the onset of the pandemic (March to December 2020). Our time series analysis found that after the pandemic onset, the mean weight gain increased by 0.49 kg (95% CI: 0.25, 0.73 kg) and weight gain z-score increased by 0.080 (95% CI: 0.03, 0.13), with no changes in the baseline yearly trend. Infant birthweight z-scores were unchanged (−0.004; 95% CI: −0.04, 0.03). Overall, the results were unchanged in analyses stratified by pregestational BMI categories.

Conclusions

We observed a modest increase in weight gain after the onset of the pandemic among pregnant people but no changes in infant birthweights. This weight change could be more important in high BMI subgroups.