Does Partial Meal Replacement During Pregnancy Reduce 12-Month Postpartum Weight Retention?

Abstract

Objective: This randomized trial tested whether a behavioral intervention with meal replacements in pregnancy could increase the proportion of women who returned to prepregnancy weight and reduce postpartum weight retention by 12 months after delivery.

Methods: Women (N = 264; 13.7 weeks' gestation) with overweight or obesity were randomly assigned to usual care or intervention. The intervention reduced excess gestational weight gain and was discontinued at delivery. At follow-up, 83.7% completed the 12-month assessment.

Results: Compared with usual care, prenatal intervention had no significant effect on odds of achieving prepregnancy weight (38/128 [29.7%] vs. 41/129 [31.8%]; P = 0.98) or in reducing the magnitude of weight retained (3.3 vs. 3.1 kg; P = 0.82) at 12 months. After delivery, significant (P < 0.0001) declines in meal replacements, practice of weight control behaviors, and dietary restraint were observed in the intervention group. Independent of group, lower gestational weight gain was the strongest predictor of achieving prepregnancy weight at 12 months (P = 0.0008).

Conclusions: A prenatal behavioral intervention with meal replacements that reduced pregnancy weight gain had no significant effect on 12-month postpartum weight retention.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01545934.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors report grants from National Institutes of Health during the conduct of the study. SP reports a grant from Weight Watchers International, outside the submitted work. The authors have no other conflicts of interest to report.

© 2018 The Obesity Society.

Figures

Figure 1.

Participant Flow

Figure 2

Weight changes through 12 months postpartum in ususal care and intervention groups

Figure 3.

Daily use of meal replacements in the usual care and intervention groups