Committee on the Impact of Pregnancy on Long-Term Health

The Committee on the Impact of Pregnancy on Long-Term Health takes a life course approach to women’s health. It advocates for and delivers clinical guidance and toolkits to health care professionals on how pregnancy can impact on a woman’s health in later life.

This committee is building on the significant and impactful work of the FIGO Pregnancy & Non-Communicable Diseases committee, the FIGO Working Group on Maternal Nutrition, the Pregnancy Obesity and Nutrition Initiative (PONI), and on the recent FIGO guidance produced by our members on pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, obesity and nutrition.

Committee Objectives

The committee works on four important streams that are key to women’s health: optimal nutrition, reduction in obesity, optimising cardiovascular health, and risk reduction of type 2 diabetes.

It produces clinical guidance for health care professionals globally who care for women across the life course.

It advocates for women’s optimal health globally by empowering women and their health care professionals on the importance of normal weight and optimal nutrition to promote wellness throughout a woman’s life, and to pass on good health to the next generations.

The award-winning FIGO nutrition checklist has been developed by the committee team and they are currently researching its implementation in many FIGO regions. The committee is developing it further by capacity building so that it will be accessible as a web-based version, relevant to women from different cultural and nutritional backgrounds.

“We now recognise that pregnancy functions as a physiological stress test that can unmask latent or subclinical diseases that may manifest later in life; and therefore, pregnancy and the postpartum period provide a unique and critical window of opportunity to estimate, assess and implement interventions to reduce a woman’s lifetime cardiovascular and metabolic risks. We also recognise that the postpartum period is a golden window for healthcare professionals to provide holistic support and guidance, especially to mothers who have developed complications during pregnancy. The work of this committee aims to improve the health of all women across the globe, with a focus on women’s health across the life course starting from pregnancy.”

- Dr Liona Poon, Committee Chair