Size at birth of live-born Saudi infants

Anthropometric measurements were done on 967 singleton live-born Saudi infants of gestational age 33 to 42 weeks who belonged to the high and middle social classes and who were born consecutively in Riyadh University Hospital. The 914 infants born at term (greater than or equal to 37 weeks) had a mean birthweight of 3.31 kg (SD 0.45), a mean length of 49.74 cm (SD 2.5) and a mean head circumference of 34.4 cm (SD 1.4). Values were significantly higher in males than females. Effect of sex in this study was not apparent until 40 weeks and later. Difference in body size was significant between the first-born and second infants but the trend was unimpressive with greater parity. Fifty-three (5.5%) of the infants were born preterm. Twenty-one of the preterm babies and 18 of the term infants weighed less than 2500 g, an overall incidence of low birthweight of 4%. Results were compared with studies from Saudi Arabia and other countries. It is concluded that there was no significant difference between birthweights of upper-class Saudis and Europeans.