Jaselyn Oakley

The Scientific Study to Identify Low Birth Weight

INTRODUCTION
Birth weight is an important guide when it comes to ones health. Over twenty million babies are
born under 2500 grams (5.51 pounds). 95.6% of these 20 million infants are born in developing
countries. This particular study was done in Hoshiarpur district (Punjab, India). That is where
the national neonatal perinatal database noted about one third of all neonates born in hospitals
are considered low birth weight. Low birth weight is associated with many disabilities including,
but not limited to: mental retardation, vision and hearing, hypertension, cardiovascular disease,
stroke, and can be developmentally slow. Therefore, is it very important to study the factors that
determine why this is happening, to hopefully give these babies a better chance at living a
normal life.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Four private hospitals were included in the study. All 504 mothers who participated were
pregnant with just one baby, and gave birth between May 2009 and September 2010. The
mothers were also between ages 20-35. All of the women apart of the study were deemed
healthy individuals and were free any illness or disease. The moms also had to guarantee they
would stay living in the city until after the delivery of their baby. Measurements of infants were
taken within 48 hours of birth, and followed the guidelines from the Lohman et al. method
(1988). The babies were weighed naked, and the ones weighing in lower than 2.5 kg (5.51
pounds) were considered low weight babies. They also measured the thickness of skin folds.
Height was rounded to the nearest 0.1cm , weight the nearest 0.2 kg. The babys crown heel length, mid-

upper arm, head, chest, thigh, calf, and abdominal were measured and rounded to the nearest 0.1 cm.
Skinfold thicknesses at biceps, triceps, and thigh, to the 0.2 mm.

RESULTS
In the first table displayed, it showed that 20.23% of the 504 babies were low birth weight. In
table 3, it was revealed that the optimum cut off point identifying low birth weight newborns was
47.45 cm for crown heel length, 32.52 cm for head circumference, 29.16 cm for chest
circumference, 8.44 cm for mid arm circumference, 28.40 cm for abdominal circumference,
11.63 cm for thigh circumference, 8.56 cm for calf circumference, 3.23 mm for subscapular
skinfold, 3.38 mm for biceps skinfold, 3.90 mm for triceps skinfold and 4.71 mm for thigh
skinfold. All of these were found to be important factors of the birth weights.
DISCUSSION
The high dominance of low birth weight in Indian babies is directly related to neonatal fatality.
The scientific factors of what cause mothers to carry low birth weight babies should be an issue
that is taken seriously. It needs to be studied to see what can be done to prevent this from
occurring so often. Keep in mind, that the cut off measurements listed above are specific for the
area of Hoshiarpur district, in Punjab, India. At 20.24% low birth weight, the findings in this
study population were smaller compared to the original percentage put out by the UNICEF
(2004) i.e. the incidence of low birth weight in India is 30%
REFERENCES
Lohman TG, Roche AF, Martorell R. 1988. Anthropometric Standardization Reference
Manual. Human Kinetics Chmpaign, IL

United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF)/ World Health Organisation (WHO) (2004).
Low birth weight: Country, Regional and Global estimates. New York. UNICEF