Association of Preeclampsia with Obesity

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the association of obesity with preeclampsia in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province of Pakistan. Methodology: This is a case-control study conducted in Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) Peshawar. Forty pregnant females (aged 15-35 years), with a diagnosis of preeclampsia during their third trimester of pregnancy were taken as cases. The basic diagnosis was made on the basis of pregnancy-induced hypertension (systolic 140 mmHg and above, diastolic 90 mmHg and above). For controls, forty pregnant females (aged 15-35 years) who remained normotensive throughout pregnancy and were in their third trimester were taken. BMI was determined using Asian BMI criteria. Tests of normality were performed and the association between obesity and preeclampsia was determined using the Mann Whitney-U test. Results: The results showed that the distribution of BMI varied among cases and controls, p<0.001. Moreover, stats showed, 33 obese among the 40 cases (preeclamptic), that is about 82.5%. And among the 40 controls (normotensives) there were 25 obese, that is, 62.5%. Conclusions: Hence, it is concluded that preeclampsia is more common among obese women.