What will happen if the mother's body is too thin before pregnancy?

Is your weight within the normal range? If you want to get pregnant, weight is something you have to prepare for. Normal weight before pregnancy can increase your chances of having a healthy pregnancy. However, if you were overweight or underweight before becoming pregnant, complications during pregnancy may occur. This is bad not only for you, but also for your future baby.

The importance of weight before pregnancy

Not only is it bad for your pregnancy, weight before pregnancy can also affect your fertility. According to the National Institutes of Health, being underweight, overweight, or obese can increase your risk of infertility.

Pre-pregnancy weight also determines how much weight you must achieve while pregnant so that you have a healthy pregnancy. If you were thin before you became pregnant, that means you have to gain more weight when you were pregnant. However, this is not an easy thing, especially if you experience problems during pregnancy, such as morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum.

Therefore, it is recommended that you prepare your body in advance before becoming pregnant so that you are more likely to have a healthy pregnancy. One of them is by getting your normal body weight. You are said to have a normal weight if you have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 18.5-24.9.

What if you have a thin body during pregnancy?

Being underweight or underweight before pregnancy makes you more likely to stay thin during pregnancy. Underweight during pregnancy can certainly have an impact on your pregnancy. If you were underweight when you became pregnant or if you didn't gain enough weight while pregnant, you are at greater risk of having a premature birth and the fetus is smaller than gestational age (small for gestational age / SGA). In the end, you will give birth to a baby with low birth weight (LBW).

Doing so can put the baby in a number of problems. LBW can increase your baby's risk of dying after birth. A 2013 study from the University of Maryland School of Public Health showed that women who didn't gain enough weight during pregnancy had a higher risk of losing their baby in the first year of life. This study examines the relationship between maternal weight gain during pregnancy, maternal BMI before pregnancy and during pregnancy, and infant mortality.

Not only that, LBW babies can also increase the risk of nutritional and developmental problems early in life. This in turn can increase health risks in adulthood, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. The smaller the weight of the baby born, the greater the risk of the baby experiencing health problems later in life.

What to do if you have a thin body before becoming pregnant?

All you have to do is increase your body weight until you reach a normal weight (check using BMI) before becoming pregnant. This can be done by increasing your food intake, by paying attention to nutritionally balanced foods, of course.

If you are already pregnant but you are still underweight, then you should try to gain more weight during pregnancy. This helps to prevent the various complications that can result from being underweight during pregnancy. If you were underweight before becoming pregnant (BMI less than 18.5), you must gain 13-18 kg during pregnancy.