Reducing postpartum weight retention through a correspondence intervention

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Since post-pregnancy weight retention may contribute to the development of obesity, we sought to determine whether a behavioral weight loss intervention was effective in returning women to their pre-pregnancy weight. METHOD: Ninety women who had given birth in the past 3 ± 12 months and whose weight exceeded their prepregnancy weight by at least 6.8 kg were randomly assigned to either: a) a six-month behavioral weight loss intervention, delivered via correspondence or b) a no-treatment control group. Assessments of body weight, physical activity and eating patterns were conducted at pre-treatment and six months (post-treatment). RESULTS: During the six month treatment, subjects in the correspondence condition lost signi®cantly more weight than control subjects (7.8 kg vs 4.9 kg, P 0.03) and lost a greater percentage of their excess postpartum weight (79% vs 44%, P 0.01). Furthermore, a signi®cantly greater percentage of correspondence subjects than controls returned to their pre-pregnancy weight (33% vs 11.5%, P`0.05). Weight loss in the correspondence group was correlated with completion of self-monitoring records (r 0.50, P`0.005). CONCLUSIONS: A behavioral weight loss intervention, delivered via correspondence, appears to be effective in reducing women's postpartum weight retention. Future studies should examine the acceptability and the long-term impact of a correspondence postpartum weight loss intervention.

Targeting physical activity and nutrition interventions towards mothers with young children: a review on components that contribute to attendance and effectiveness

“…The low attendance reported for most of the interventions shows the difficulty of reaching mothers of young children in programmes for promoting health behaviours -as mentioned by other authors (31,33,34,41,42) . This is also reflected in the large number of attempts to increase attendance with only minor results.…”

“…No intervention effects were found in subgroup (26) : Participants in the two intervention sites were issued US$10 worth of vouchers per week, in US$1 units for the supermarket site and in US$2 units for the farmers' market site, to buy produce of the participants' choice. Vouchers were issued bimonthly and could be spent over the ensuing 2-month period (23) : The intervention included individual counselling on PA (one primary counselling session and four booster sessions) and diet (one primary counselling session and three booster sessions in addition to the PA booster sessions) during five routine visits to a public health nurse and an option to attend exercise classes held once per week for 45-60 min Leermakers et al (1998) (31) : A 6-month behavioural weight-loss intervention delivered via correspondence, which focused on low-fat/ low-calorie eating habits and increasing PA. This intervention included three components: (i) two group sessions; (ii) correspondence materials (sixteen written lessons about nutrition, exercise and behaviour change strategies); and (iii) telephone contact (weekly or biweekly) Østbye et al (2009) (33) : Active Mothers Postpartum consisted of eight healthy eating sessions (Mom's Time Out (MTO) classes), ten PA group sessions (ACTIVMOMS classes) and six telephone-counselling sessions over a 9-month period.…”

“…Five studies with components targeted at mothers did not show significant results on physical activity (23,31,(33)(34)(35) . Of these studies, three were aimed at multiple behaviour change (23,31,33) . The two other interventions consisted of a single intervention; a brochure with tips for how to overcome barriers (34) or exercise -pram walking -groups (35) .…”

“…Four interventions were implemented in a clinical setting (23,31,33,35) , three in a community setting (34,36) and five interventions were implemented within or alongside the WIC (25,26,29,30,32) . Three studies were quasi-experiments (23,26,35) and eight true experiments (25,(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)36) .Six studies included only postpartum mothers with children up to the age of 1 year (23,26,31,33,35,36) , in contrast with the five other studies which included mothers of children up to 5 years (25,29,30,32,34) . Moreover, the study populations differed on socio-economic and ethnic composition.…”

Fatores determinantes da retenção de peso no pós-parto: uma revisão da literatura

“…Estes incluem variáveis relacionadas à história reprodutiva, sobretudo à paridade (Arroyo et al, 1995;Billewicz & Thomson, 1970;Brown et al, 1992;Coitinho, 1998;Heliovara & Aromaa, 1981;Newcombe, 1982), à intensidade da lactação (Barbosa et al, 1997;Butte & Hopkinson, 1998;Dewey et al, 1993;Kramer et al, 1993;Potter et al, 1991), à atividade físi-ca (Boardley et al, 1995;Dewey, 1998aDewey, , 1998bLovelady et al, 2000), assim como fatores ligados ao estilo de vida no pós-parto (Leermakers et al, 1998;Ohlin & Rossner, 1990Parham et al, 1990;Rossner, 1992;Sampselle et al, 1999;Schauberger et al, 1992;Smith et al, 1994).…”