SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — The more obese a woman is before becoming pregnant, the lower her chances will be for successful induction, according to researchers who reviewed computerized records of 45,998 pregnancies in a German database.
Rabbie Hanna, M.D., and his colleagues reported the rate of successful labor induction fell from a high of 79% for women of normal weight with a body mass index (BMI) below 25 kg/m
The researchers from Wayne State University in Detroit computed success rates of 71% for overweight women with a BMI range of 25–29 kg/m
“We saw that as obesity increases, normal labor decreases and induction of labor increases,” Dr. Hanna said at the annual meeting of the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, where he presented the data in a poster.
The study mined a perinatal database of 170,258 cases collected from 1991 to 1997 in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The investigators selected nulliparous, low-risk women who came to full term with singleton pregnancies. Prepregnancy height and weight had to be in the database for a woman to be included in the analysis.
Among the 45,998 pregnancies that fit these criteria, there were 898 pregnancies that ended in elective cesarean section and 45,100 in which the women underwent labor (6,427 required induction).