The effectiveness of healthy lifestyle interventions on weight gain in overweight pregnant women: A cluster‐randomized controlled trial

AIM: Interventions based on adopting a healthy lifestyle have been less successful. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of healthy lifestyle interventions on weight gain in overweight pregnant women. DESIGN: A cluster randomized controlled trial. METHODS: Health centres were selected by simple random sampling; then, 66 overweight pregnant women were enrolled by convenience sampling and divided into intervention and comparison groups. Intervention group received individual nutritional counselling and physical activity training. The data were collected in several stages with the demographic and obstetric questionnaire, maternal weight record, food frequency and international physical activity questionnaire. RESULTS: Pregnancy weight gain‐4.75(CI 95%: −4.02, −5.48) was significantly lower in the intervention group (p < .001). Comparing between groups with adjustment for baseline values indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in terms of total calorie 95.46 (CI 95%: −22.37, 213.30), carbohydrate 23.45 (CI 95%: 2.12, 44.78), protein −7.16 (CI 95%: −12.85, −1.47) and fat 8.82 (CI 95%: 2.21, 15.67) intake. Despite the higher level of physical activity in the intervention group, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. CONCLUSION: Counselling interventions for healthy living during pregnancy can lead to controlling weight gain, improving dietary habits and increasing the physical activity in overweight pregnant women.