Women who eat more fruit, do not misuse alcohol and are in paid employment are more likely to have a normal pregnancy, a major new study involving researchers from Ireland has shown.

While many studies have focused on risk factors in pregnancy, few have looked at lifestyle factors associated with having a healthy pregnancy. Researchers from Ireland, the UK and New Zealand decided to investigate this further.

They set out to identify factors at 15-20 weeks' gestation that were associated with an uncomplicated pregnancy overall.

Over 5,600 healthy women from Ireland, the UK, New Zealand and Australia, who were pregnant with their first child, took part. The researchers were looking for uncomplicated pregnancies, where the baby was born the right size at full-term.

Among the women, six in 10 had an uncomplicated pregnancy. Among those who had a complicated pregnancy, the most common reasons included high blood pressure and going into labour prematurely.

The researchers found that factors that increased the risk of a complicated pregnancy were increasing body mass index (BMI), increasing blood pressure and the misuse of drugs, including alcohol, during the first trimester.

However, factors that increased the likelihood of an uncomplicated pregnancy included eating more fruit in the month before pregnancy and being in paid employment 15 weeks into the pregnancy.

The researchers acknowledged that certain risk factors could not be altered, such as a person's socio-economic status or if they had a family history of high blood pressure during pregnancy.

They pointed out that there is a ‘growing interest' in promoting good health and normality during pregnancy, rather than focusing on poor outcomes.

"This study should inform development of interventions to increase normal pregnancy outcomes," they commented.

Details of these findings are published in the British Medical Journal. In an accompanying editorial, Prof Marian Knight, of the University of Oxford, agreed that in pregnancy, there should be more focus on ‘normality rather than abnormality'.

She called for further research to ‘assess factors associated with uncomplicated pregnancy' in women with underlying medical conditions.

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