The nutritional status of a woman before and during pregnancy is critical to both her infant's and her own health and survival. It determines her well-being and that of the fetus and child, and in turn the health and reproductive capacity of the next generation's mothers. Anthropometric assessment of nutritional status during the reproductive cycle, particularly during pregnancy, is a widely used, low-technology procedure that has seldom been rigorously evaluated. The need to provide sound technical advice on the utility and feasibility of selected anthropometric indicators for routine application in primary health care, especially in circumstances where resources are limited, led to a meta-analysis of 25 data sets on maternal anthropometry and pregnancy outcomes from 20 different countries, providing information on more than 111,000 births and quantifying to what degree anthropometric measurements are useful and efficient in predicting maternal and child outcomes of pregnancy in the community and at home in different country settings. The next stage will be the demonstration of the operational value of the findings of this study through their successful application in service settings on a large scale.