To address the critical gap on evidence-based public health tools for monitoring gestational weight gain (GWG) that apply to women of all body mass index (BMI) levels and geographic locations, the World Health Organization (WHO) initiated a normative process to develop global GWG standards that can be used as a tool for dynamic monitoring in antenatal care in diverse settings. An important outcome of this project will also be the definition of optimal GWG ranges based on these curves as a tool to support the reduction of adverse maternal and infant outcomes.
This project will be led by the WHO Departments of Nutrition and Food Safety (NFS) and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research (SRH), with contributions of the Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, in partnership with an expert group including researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the Cornell University (USA), and the University of British Columbia (Canada). The project will also count on the expertise of the Technical Advisory Group on Gestational Weight Gain (TAG-GWG).
The first meeting of the TAG-GWG will be held on 20 and 22 June 2023 (14-17h CEST). The objective of this kick-off meeting is to introduce the TAG members, WHO secretariat and partners in this project, as well as the project timeline and tentative workplan, and to discuss key technical details and operation mode.
Specific objectives of this meeting are to:
- Introduce the TAG-GWG members to WHO secretariat and partner working group
- Present the project and timeline
- Present the proposed approach to achieve the project’s expected outcomes
- Inform TAG-GWG members on its modus operandi
- Provide updates to TAG-GWG on the work done so far
- Discuss TAG-GWG feedback on the proposed eligibility criteria for inclusion of studies in the pooled dataset
- Discuss potential working groups to facilitate TAG division of tasks