Latent factors in body build of newborns

The paper is focused on relationships between traits of newborns and on discerning factors characterizing newborns more generally than individual traits. For this purpose a factor analysis was made using 35 somatic traits of 1013 newborns examined in hospitals of Zambrów and Białystok. Main components were found from the correlation matrix, and after the orthogonal rotation of the Varimax type, eight independent factors were identified. The body weight was highly correlated with circumferences of chest, calf, forearm, head, and arm. Body length was correlated with the length of lower extremities, the length of upper extremities was correlated with the length of arm and with the breadth and depth of chest, circumferences of different body parts were correlated with each other, and this was also the case of the thickness of three skin-fat-folds. The following factors were found as a result of the factor analysis (in parentheses there are traits showing highest correlations with a given factor, thus, most suitable for monitoring studies): F1-body weight (thigh circumference), F2-upper extremity length, F3-subcutaneous fat tissue (skin-fat-fold thickness on rib 10), F4-face length and nose diameters (upper-face height), F5-scapular-arm-hip diameters (scapular breadth), F6-trunk length (trunk length), F7-body length (length of lower extremities), and F8-head breadth diameters (mandible breadth).