Adverse Maternal Nutritional Status Affects Birth Weight among Rural Mothers of Maharashtra

Maternal anthropometry and its influence on the birth weight has been studied widely, but effects of maternal undernutrition in-utero depicted by surrogate measures of sitting height and head circumference are largely unknown. We have studied the maternal sitting height along with other conventional nutritional status indicators at registration in predicting the risk of low birth weight (LBW) among 204 young rural women. Information on socio-demographic and economic profile, anthropometric measurements at registration and neonatal birth weight after delivery was recorded. Mothers were thin (mean weight; 46.4±6.1 kg), had short stature (mean height: 153.3±5.7 cm) and 33.8% were undernourished (body mass index (BMI) <18.5 kg/m²). Prevalence of LBW was 27.5%. Maternal weight, height, BMI, head circumference, sitting height and %body fat at registration were significantly (p<0.05) associated with birth weight. Significant risks for LBW were observed for low (<42.26 kg) weight (OR=3.69; CI: 1.6-8.1), short (<150 cm) height (OR=2.3; CI: 1-5.1), low (<18.5 kg/m²) BMI (OR=3.27; CI: 1.4-7.3), low (<70 cm) sitting height (OR=2.3; CI: 1.0-5.1), small (<52 cm) head circumference (OR=3.3; CI: 1.6-7.1), and low (<22.7%) %body fat (OR=4.98; CI: 2.2-11.2). Interestingly, these risks remained significant for sitting height (OR=3.4; CI: 1.5-7.6, OR=2.5; CI: 1.1-5.8) and head circumference (OR=2.4; CI: 1.1-5.6, OR=2.2; CI: 0.9-5.03) even after adjusting for BMI and %body fat respectively indicating their independent influence. Our findings highlight that in addition to the current maternal undernourishment, maternal undernourishment in-utero (small head circumference and short sitting height) imposes risk for LBW.