The goal of the present work is to report the impact of psychological support, given during pregnancy to a group of adolescents, on maternal weight gain and their infants' birth weight. A total of 54 clinically healthy pregnant women of middle educational level were studied in Mexico City, beginning on the 20th week of pregnancy throughout the end of it. Before pregnancy there were no significant intergroup differences in height, age at menarche or expected weight for height; the groups were adolescents without psychological support (group I), adolescents with support (group II), and adults (group III). The median weight gains were 8.2, 11.0 and 12.2 kg for groups I, II and III respectively. Our results suggest that in favorable socioeconomic conditions, psychological support can be a non-nutritional intervention which can promote an adequate weight gain during pregnancy in adolescents, probably by diminishing their anxiety level.
PIP: A total of 54 healthy primiparous women with an uneventful full-term pregnancy were studied starting from the 20th week of pregnancy through the end of it at the Instituto Nacional de Perinatologia in Mexico City (INPer). They were divided into Group I (14 adolescents aged 15-18 years regularly attending the outpatient prenatal care clinic at INPer); Group II (18 adolescent women aged 14-18 years also attending the clinic but also receiving additional psychological support by a psychotherapy team); Group III (22 adult women aged 20-44 years who also were attending the clinic, but as Group I, did not receive psychological support). All women were studied at 20, 24, 30 and 34 weeks of pregnancy to establish the cumulative weight gain throughout pregnancy as well as their newborns' birth weight. All women were attended at monthly intervals in the prenatal care of the INPer. In terms of marital status, 53/54 of the women did have clear family support. Furthermore, 15/54 of the unmarried women also received emotional support from their partners. Group I, the adolescents lacking psychological support, had systematically lower weight gain than the other two groups, that is, Group I gained almost 3 kg less than the adolescents with support, and 4 kg less that the adult women. One quarter of the women of Group I did not gain any weight between weeks 20 and 24 and when their weight in the 20th week was compared to their pregestational weight, a weight loss of almost 1 kg was found. There were no differences in the infants' birth weight in the three groups (3.05, 2.95, and 3.00 kg for Groups I, II, and III). Systematic psychological support as a non-nutritional intervention throughout pregnancy can promote an adequate weight gain during pregnancy in adolescents aged 14 to 18 years, probably by diminishing their anxiety level and thus, their energy expenditure.