Maternal prepregnancy overweight and obesity and the risk of preeclampsia: A meta-analysis of cohort studies

Objective: The aim of our meta-analysis was to explore whether overweight and obesity was associated with preeclampsia or not. Design: Three databases were systematically reviewed and reference lists of relevant articles were checked. Meta-analysis of published cohort studies comparing whether overweight and obesity was associated with preeclampsia and adjusting for potential confounding factors. Calculations of pooled estimates were conducted in random-effects models. Heterogeneity was tested by using Chi-square test with Cochrane and heterogeneity was explored with meta-regression. Publication bias was estimated from Egger's test (linear regression method) and Begg's test (rank correlation method). Results: Nineteen studies met the inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis showed that overweight and obesity was associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia. The aOR calculated for 13 studies (compared overweight to normal weight) was 1.71, 95% CI (1.52, 1.91) for random-effects models and 19 studies (compared obesity to normal weight) was 2.48, 95% CI (2.05, 2.90) for random-effects models, stratified analyses showed no differences regarding quality grade, location of study and period of anthropometric measurement. There was no indication of a publication bias either from the result of Egger's test or Begg's test. Conclusions: Our results suggested that prepregnancy maternal overweight and obesity are significantly associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia. (C) 2020 Asia Oceania Association for the Study of Obesity. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.