Lack of correlation between maternal body weight or weight gain and stillbirth in twin pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE

To study differences in maternal weight and weight gain for 48 twin-pregnant women with at least one stillbirth, versus 96 control mothers where both twin pairs survived the perinatal period.

MATERIAL AND

METHODS

In all, 48 twin gestations with one or both twins dead before or during birth (cases), in a defined region with 12 hospitals in southern Sweden between 1973 and 1989, were identified by using information stored at the Medical Birth Registry, the National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm. For each case pregnancy, two control twin pregnancies were selected; matching criteria were same parity and delivery unit, and similar year of delivery (+/- 1 year) and maternal age (+/- 5 years).

RESULTS

Case and control women had a similar number of maternal body weight measurements during pregnancy, 8.9 vs. 8.0 (t = 1.5, p > 0.05). No significant difference between cases and controls was found regarding maternal weight (mean +/- SEM) at 12 weeks of gestation (68.0 +/- 1.4 vs. 68.1 +/- 0.9 kg; t = 0.2, p > 0.05), or in weight gain/pregnancy week (0.59 +/- 0.28 vs. 0.61 +/- 0.19 kg; t = 0.8; p > 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The results of this study indicate that repeated body weight measurements of the twin-pregnant woman are of very limited value in the identification of a twin-pregnant woman later to face stillbirth.