الفهرس 
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Abstract
Prevalence rates of obesity in the general population have increased substantially in the past 20 years. While these figures include the population as a whole and are of great concern, what is even more alarming is the number of women of childbearing age who are overweight or obese.
This increase in the prevalence of maternal obesity is of great concern as it has been found to be associated with adverse health outcomes affecting the mother and her fetus, neonate and child. Unfortunately, the association between obesity and adverse pregnancy outcomes is not universally acknowledged, which only serves to perpetuate the problem.
The increasing rate of maternal obesity provides a major challenge to obstetric practice. Maternal obesity can result in negative outcomes for both women and fetuses. The maternal risks during pregnancy include gestational diabetes and preeclampsia. The fetus is at risk for stillbirth and congenital anomalies. Obesity in pregnancy can also affect health later in life for both mother and child. For women, these risks include heart disease and hypertension. Children have a risk of future obesity and heart disease. Women and their offspring are at increased risk for diabetes. Obstetrician-gynecologists are well positioned to prevent and treat this epidemic.
In our study we aimed to determine the effect of maternal obesity on fetal growth and development, to study the role of obesity on development of fetal anomalies.
The study was prospectively performed on selected 100 cases and 100 controls from pregnant women who were referred from outpatient clinics to the Special care unit for the fetus; Ain Shams University Maternity Hospital for ultrasound examination in the period from July 2013 to January 2015.
All patients and controls had full history and were given a questionnaire to fill concerning their life style and causes that lead to their obesity to assess causes of their obesity.
In our study we better maternal weight could be attributed to higher level of education. As for occupation 38% of cases were housewives compared to only 18% of controls, which states that staying at home is related to increased maternal weight.
Consanguinity was not a factor affecting maternal obesity. The same can be said for previous pregnancy complications.
As for parity we can conclude that women with more number of children especially in younger age are more liable to gain weight due to the burden of pregnancy itself as well as nursing and taking care of the children. Also breast feeding was related to higher maternal weight.
Oral contraception use was markedly related to obesity in women as 56% of the cases used OCP before compared to only 10% in the controls. None of the cases nor the controls were smokers so we could not assess the effect of smoking on maternal obesity.
Obesity among family was apparently related to women’s obesity.
The number of daily meals was a very significant factor directly proportionate to obesity in our study Consistency in eating times was an important factor showing great difference among the study groups as 75% of controls reported eating at specific times compared to only 32% among cases. Also eating snacks, desserts and preserved food intake was much higher within cases
No significant differences were found between the 2 study groups concerning sleeping hours while obese women among the cases reported more TV watching hours than controls
Exercise in the form of walking and climbing stairs was only reported in 3% of cases compared to 64% of controls.
Mean prepregnancy weight for cases was 97.96 kg ± 8.9 SD compared to 61.93 kg ± 3.9 SD. However maternal height was close for both cases and controls with mean of 165.24 cm for cases ± 7.4 SD and 164 cm ± 5.1 for controls giving us prepregnancy mean BMI of 35.99 ± 3.82 for cases compared to 23.1 ± 2.1 SD for controls.
Pregnant women were referred to us in the third trimester with similar mean gestational age for both cases and controls. According to our results; fetuses of the cases showed increase in fetal weight and gestation age according to the US gestational age compared to LMP. However amniotic fluid index was markedly affected by obesity. No congenital anomalies were seen in either groups by US.