1Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Al-Azhar Medical College, Ezhalloor, Thodupuzha, Kerala
2Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, Koppal Institute of Medical Sciences, Koppal, Karnataka
The factors that affect the supply of nutrition to the fetus depend on the maternal body composition, size as assessed by the pregnancy weight and the weight gain during pregnancy
To establish correlation between maternal body mass index and of maternal nutritional status during pregnancy with the birth weight of the new born.
This was a hospital based prospective study carried out at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Medical College Hospital, and K.C. General Hospital, Bangalore during the period of Oct. 2001-Sept.2002. The subjects for the study were pregnant women delivering at full term Majority of the pregnant women participated in the study were in the age group of 20–30 years.
58 female and 50 male babies were considered for the study, they had a mean birth weight (in Kgs) of 2.60 + 0.28 and 3.01+ 0.41 respectively. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between maternal body mass index with birth weight in Group I and Group II (P<0.05) However in Group III male and female babies were non significant. There was no significant correlation between maternal hemoglobin content and birth weight of male babies.
It was concluded that there was a significant positive correlation between the maternal nutritional status with the birth weight of the babies.
Body mass index, Newborn weight, Hemoglobin, Maternal nutritional
