Maternal Factors for Low Birth Weight Babies

Low birth weight is defined as the live births with less than 2.5 kg weight. It is a key determinant of infant survival, health and development. Low birth weight infants are at a greater risk of having a disability and for diseases such as cerebral palsy, visual problems, learning disabilities and respiratory problems. To reduce the low birth weight deliveries, we studied the maternal factors which adversely affect the fetus in utero and their impact on fetus.

A retrospective study was carried out on 40 low birth weight pregnancies out of 650 deliveries from July 2005 to Jun 2006. Maternal factors like age, parity, pre pregnancy body mass index, hemoglobin levels, bad obstetric history (history of stillbirth/neonatal death in previous pregnancies, three or more spontaneous consecutive abortions), pre eclampsia, fetal distress, mode of deliveries were studied. These results were compared with a random sample of 300 pregnant ladies taken from rest of the deliveries. Cases of multiple pregnancies and stillbirths were excluded.

We found that prepregnancy maternal body mass index (p<0.01 for BMI <20), unbooked status (p<0.01), pre eclampsia (p <0.01) and bad obstetric history (p<0.01) were the maternal factors which resulted in low birth weight babies in most of the cases. However in 10 (25%) cases, no contributory maternal factor was found.

Prepregnancy maternal body mass index, unbooked status, pre eclampsia and bad obstetric history are significant maternal factors resulting in low birth weight babies.