CHAPTER ONE

1.0            INTRODUCTION

Excessive weight gain during pregnancy has shown to increase blood volume, cardiac output and blood pressure during pregnancy. They showed almost a 6-fold rise of induced hypertension compared with women who had adequate gestational weight (Nan et al., 2013). The amount of weight gained during pregnancy can affect the immediate and future health of a woman and her infant. The population demographics of women who become pregnant have changed dramatically over the past decade, more women are overweight or obese at conception. Evidence supports associations between excessive gestational weight gain and increased birth weight and post partum weight retention but also between inadequate weight gain and decreased birth weight (Siega-Riz et al., 2009)

Studies have shown that obesity and excessive weight gain during pregnancy had 1.78 times the odd of caesarean section delivery as compared with normal body mass index and adequate weight gain in pregnancy (Graham et al., 2014). It is a well known fact that excessive weight gain is associated with diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia which are major risk factors for most arterial disease because of increase blood volume, increased cardiac output increased accumulation of fats in adipose tissues and decreased sensitivity of insulin to glucose.

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