LB2882MaternalNutriti+ - Mead Johnson Nutrition

women in other developed countries.” 3 For example, Canada has adopted the IOM guidelines. 63 The IOM guidelines,
however, are “not intended for use in areas of the world where women are substantially shorter or thinner than
American women or where adequate obstetric services are unavailable.” 3 The IOM guidelines are reviewed here.
The 2009 IOM recommendations adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) BMI categories to classify women’s
weight. The WHO categories make the 2009 weight gain recommendations for pregnancy congruent with those of
the non-pregnancy state (Table 1) and set an upper limit of weight gain for obese women (Table 2). The weight gain
range for obese women in the IOM’s latest recommendations was primarily based on data for women with BMIs in
the range of 30 to 34.9 kg/m. 2 Thus, women with higher BMIs are encouraged to gain at the lower end of the range. 3
TAbLE 1. CRITERIA FOR CLASSIFICATIONS OF PRE-PREGNANCY WEIGHT STATUS bMI (kG/M 2 ) 3
bMI
Underweight