Abstract:
Introduction: Gestational weight gain among pregnant mothers’ results from diverse functional
and structural modifications that occur in a woman’s body to get the nutritional demands of
pregnancy and the fetus. However, inadequate and excessive weight gain during pregnancy
increases the risk of adverse pregnancy outcome for women and the fetus.There are dearth of
studies conducted on gestational weight gain and its associated factors among pregnant women
in Ethiopia, particularly in the current study area.
Objective: The objective of the study was to assess inadequate gestational weight gain and its
associated factors among women attending antenatal clinic in public and private health facilities
in Adama City, Oromia, Ethiopia from December 15, 2021- January 15, 2022.
Methods: An institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 341 randomly
selected mothers attending ANC at public and private health facilities in Adama city,
Ethiopia, Data was collected by structured questionnaire, four data collecters were recruited
and the study participants collected from ANC clinic by sytamatic randam sampling.Data was
entered into a computer using Epi Data Version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 22 for
cleaning and analysis. The characteristics of study participants were presented using
descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution and summary statistics. Bivariate binary
logistic regression was used to identify independent variables that have crude association with
gestational weight gain at a p-value of 0.25 and multivariable regression models was used to
identify variables that have significant association with gestational weight gain at a p-value <
0.05. The strength of association is presented using odds ration along with 95% Confidence
interval.
Results: In the current study, the magnitudes of Adequate and inadequate gestational weight
gain were 37.2% (95% CI: 31.7, 42.5) and 62.8% (95% CI: 57.5, 68.3), respectively. Women
who had never attended formal education (AOR =6.8, 95 % CI: 1.6, 28.4) and women who
had family monthly income of <1500 birr per month (AOR = 8.8, 95% CI: (2.3, 32.4), women
who attending ANC < 37 weeks (AOR = 13.9, 95 % CI: (4.59 , 42.4) and women who were
in food insecure (AOR= 32, 95%, CI (24.2, 48.4)has significantly association with
gestational weight
Conclusions and recommendation: In the current study, more than three-fifth of the pregnant
women experienced an inadequate gestational weight gain. Thus, public health and Nutrtional
intervention should be considered targeting food insecured households, women with no formal
education, low family income during pregnancy.
