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Bulletin of the World Health Organization logoLink to Bulletin of the World Health Organization
. 1991;69(5):523–532.

Maternal anthropometry for prediction of pregnancy outcomes: memorandum from a USAID/WHO/PAHO/MotherCare meeting.

PMCID: PMC2393257  PMID: 1959155

Abstract

The meeting discussed two main areas concerning maternal anthropometry in developing countries: (1) how various anthropometric indicators can be best utilized for assessing and monitoring the nutritional status of women at different times in their reproductive lives, and (2) the predictive value of various anthropometric indicators for identifying benefit or risk for maternal and perinatal/neonatal health and nutritional outcomes of pregnancy. The indicators discussed were prepregnancy weight, height, weight gain in pregnancy, arm circumference, weight-for-height and body mass index (weight (kg)/height (m)2). Some 50 experts reached consensus on the tools for assessing maternal nutritional status for widespread field application in developing countries, and on priority research needs. This Memorandum summarizes the general recommendations which have important and immediate field applications, as well as priority research issues related to specific indicators.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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