Brain-weight/liver-weight ratio as an index of nutritional status in perinatal deaths

Brain-weight/liver-weight ratio has been suggested to be a good indicator of nutritional status in new-born babies. But no evidence except low blood sugar and low hepatic reserve of carbohydrate have been presented to support this. In the present study babies dying in perinatal period have been compared by dividing them arbitrarily into two groups according to a fixed B/L ratio of 3.5. The results showed that the nutritional status of babies with high B/L ratio was comparatively poorer than babies with normal B/L ratio in terms of weight, length and hepatic reserve of iron, folate and vitamin A, and thus provide evidence to the hypothesis.