Background The effect of weight management in pregnancy is evaluated in many randomised trials. There is paucity of evidence regarding what outcomes are considered to be clinically relevant to patient care. We performed a two round Delphi survey to prioritise the outcomes that are considered to be important in the weight management of women in pregnancy

Methods A structured list of these outcomes was sent to 20 Consultants in UK and Netherlands with interest in this field. They were requested to rank the outcomes for their importance to clinical practice on a 1 to 9 scale. The median scores and the interquartile ranges (IQR) were calculated. In the second round, the experts were asked to reconsider their previous rating in view of the panel score and the new scores were calculated.

Results Nineteen panellists (19/20, 95%) participated in the first round and 16 (16/19, 84%) in the second round. Five maternal outcomes had a median score of 8 or more with IQR of 2 or less in first round. For fetal outcomes, there was a consistency in the ranking with median scores over 8 and IQR of 1.25 or less. Gestational diabetes, pre eclampsia or gestational hypertension, maternal admission to ITU/HDU and venous thromboembolism were the top 5 clinically important outcomes identified.

Conclusions This Delphi survey has identified the outcomes that are considered to be critically important in the weight management of pregnant women. Future randomised trials will need to evaluate the effect of weight management interventions in pregnancy for these outcomes.