A comparative study of socio-economic effect and biological variables on birth weight among the Assamese Hindus and Assamese Muslims people in Guwahati city.

Birth weight is the body weight of a baby at its birth (Wikipedia). A study on a few selected socio-biological and demographic determinants of birth weight was conducted at three different hospitals of Guwahati city, namely, ‘Pratikha hospital’, ‘Global hospital’ and ‘H.M. hospital and research centre pvt. Ltd.’ of Guwahati, Assam during January 2013 to June 2014. The sample size consists of 238 Hindu women (243 live births) and 171 (173 live births) of Muslim women. The findings of the present study conclude that teenage pregnancies should be actively discouraged in both the ethnic group so as to reduce the incidence of LBW. The concerned authorities should formulate appropriate health awareness and health promotion programmes to encourage late (non teenage) motherhood and discourage early pregnancies among individuals.