Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development
  • Year: 2018
  • Volume: 9
  • Issue: 7

A Cross Sectional Study to Estimate Prevalence and Maternal Risk factors with term low Birth weight Babies

1Assistant Professor; Community Medicine; ESIC Medical College, Sanath Nagar, Hyderabad

2Assistant Professor, Community Medicine; Kamineni Institute of Medical Sciences, Narketpally

3Professor, Community Medicine; Kamineni Institute of Medical Sciences, Narketpally

*Corresponding Author: Dr. Sridhar D. Assistant Professor, Community Medicine, ESIC Medical College, Sanath Nagar, Hyderabad

Online published on 21 July, 2018.

Abstract

WHO defined Low birth weight (LBW) as birth weight less than 2500gms. Intra uterine growth retardation (IUGR), preterm birth or combinations of both are the common causes of LBW. In India two thirds of LBW cases are due to small for date. Infants with IUGR have greater morbidity and mortality than the appropriately grown infants. Also LBW is a major determinant of malnutrition in infancy, as 40% of LBW babies are malnourished at 1 year of age.

300 subjects were randomly selected from the department of obstetrics and paediatrics for measuring the prevalence of LBW and to correlate it with maternal risk factors.

Prevalence of term LBW babies was found to be 36.30%. Mean birth weight was 2.52 kg. Lower socio economic class led LBW babies 82(52.9%), upper lower class 24(28.6%), and lower middle class 3(4.9%). Majority of the LBW babies were born to short stature(<145cms) mothers, which was statistically significant.

Keywords

Low birth weight, maternal risk factors, maternal morbidities