An estimated one in 20 women is severely obese during pregnancy, making it what the researchers describe as “one of the biggest challenges presented to maternity services in the UK”.

‌The team analysed anonymous data on 484 pregnant women exploring their total usage of NHS services, including GP visits, medication, and any inpatient or outpatient treatment. The study focused exclusively on usage of NHS services for the mother, not the baby.

‌They used BMI (body mass index) as an indicator of weight, and accounted for other factors such as age, social class, other health conditions, and smoking and drinking alcohol.

Kelly Morgan from Swansea University College of Medicine, who led the research, said:

“Our findings highlight that the NHS is currently spending additional money on increased health service use for overweight and obese women, throughout pregnancy.

“Our study shows that the extra costs of obesity in pregnancy are significant and our figures are conservative as they exclude areas such as absenteeism from work. In addition, other evidence shows that maternal obesity is often associated with poorer health in the children, which in turn creates extra cost.”

If money was invested in preventing obesity in young women prior to pregnancy, it would be cost saving to the NHS and also be advantageous for health outcomes in the mother and newborn.

According to the research:

• The costs to the NHS per pregnancy were 23% higher for overweight women, and 37% higher among obese women, compared to women of healthy weight
• The average costs to the NHS per pregnancy were £3,546 for women of healthy weight, £4,244 for overweight women, and £4,718 for obese women
• Across the UK, these additional costs for obese women add up to anywhere between £105 - £286 million per year.  Up to this amount could be spent on preventing obesity and would still be cost saving to the NHS

In comparison to women of healthy weight, throughout pregnancy overweight and obese women had:

• 15-20% greater usage of all healthcare services
• 30% higher average number of days in hospital
• 10% higher usage of GP services

Picture:  Kelly Morgan, College of Medicine, Swansea University, who led the research.

Head of Midwifery Studies at Swansea University, Susanne Darra adds:

“This study, carried out by researchers in Swansea University, is robust and would clearly assist providers of maternity services to understand the extra financial costs of caring for women who are overweight or obese when pregnant. It also demonstrates how much may be spent on interventions to prevent obesity in pregnancy, in order to remain cost-effective. As such it is a very exciting contribution to the body of knowledge in maternity care and has obvious potential to affect service provision for women.”

This work was carried out in CIPHer, part of the FARR Institute

The article, entitled Obesity in pregnancy: a retrospective prevalence-based study on health service utilisation and costs on the NHS was published in the British Medical Journal and can be viewed here.