Víctor Vaca-Merino; Ruth Maldonado-Rengel; Pablo Tandazo Montaño; Arianna Ochoa-Camacho; Daniela Guamán-Ayala; Lizbeth Riofrio-Loaiza; Cristian Vaca-Sarango & Mariano del Sol

The maternal nutritional status determines the health and nutritional conditions of the newborn, as well as complications during pregnancy and childbirth. The study was carried out in 894 women who had their delivery in the Hospitals of the city of Loja Ecuador during the period January - June 2019. The anthropometry of the mother and her child was determined, as well as data on complications during pregnancy and delivery, from their clinical history. In addition, the correlation was made between the pre-gestational nutritional status of the mother with the newborn, in the same way with the health status of the mother. The objective of this work was to determine the pre-gestational nutritional status and its relationship with the health and nutritional condition of the child. The pre-gestational BMI reported 47.3 % overweight and obesity and 2.6 % underweight. In a percentage higher than 10 %, mothers with overweight and obesity had large children for gestational age, in the same way, mothers with low weight had 26.1 % small newborns. The main complications of the mothers related to overweight and obesity were: gestational diabe- tes, postpartum hemorrhage and pre-eclampsia during pregnancy. It is important to note the high frequency of urinary tract infections 53.9% (478); and vaginitis 22.3% (199; although these are not directly related to metabolic processes such as etiology, more if they are favored by them. During delivery, the most frequent complication was dystocic delivery with 8.9 % (77), in addition to the total deliveries 42.5 % (374) that ended in cesarean section, of which 51.6 % (193) correspond to overweight and obesity. The complications of the newborn were: Acute respiratory distress syndrome, neonatal asphyxia and hypoglycemia. In conclusion, the pre-gestational nutritional status of the mother is directly related to the health and nutritional status of the newborn.

KEY WORDS: Nutritional status; Pregnancy; childbirth; Newborn; BMI.

VACA-MERINO, V.; MALDONADO-RENGEL, R.; PABLO TANDAZO-MONTAÑO.; OCHOA-CAMACHO, A.; DANIELA GUAMÁN-AYALA, D.; RIOFRIO-LOAIZA, L.; VACA- SARANGO, C. & DEL SOL, M. Nutrition status of pregnant women and its relationship with complications of pregnancy and the newborn. Int. J. Mophol., 40(2):384-388, 2022.