Patterns of low birth weight in the Bengali newborns
Pakrasi, K.; Sil, S.; Dasgupta, P.; Dasgupta, I.
Indian Journal of Physical Anthropology and Human Genetics 11(2-3): 107-122
1985
ISSN/ISBN: 0378-8156 PMID: 12280694 Document Number: 423616
Distribution of low birth weight (2500g. or less) by gestation time, sex of the infant, mother's age, parity (birth order), socioeconomic condition, and season of birth have been examined among 5,117 single livebirths borne by the Bengali mothers. The data were collected from the Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratisthan (Hospital), Calcutta. Analyses of the data have revealed the following patterns of distributions: 1) by gestation time the pre-term infants are found, as it is expected, to present low birth weight significantly more frequently than their term counterparts, 2) the female infants have registered low birth weight significantly more than the male babies, 3) the newborns of the poor mother are significantly associated with low birth weight in higher order than their counterparts born to the well-off mothers, 4) the teenage adolescent mothers have produced low birth weight babies significantly more than their aged counterparts, 5) the association between birth weight and birth order (parity) is though not significant, occurrences of low birth weight are higher in the first-born and late-born infants, the lowest proportion being registered at the second birth order, 6) Season of birth and incidence of low birth weight is also not significantly associated. Nevertheless, the lowest proportion of low birth weight is otherwise noted among the summer-born infants, while the highest in the autumn-born babies. Within the total strength of the low birth weight infants (46%) only a little less than one-tenth are pre-term, while the rest are term babies. Thus, the great majority of the low birth weight infants are, in fact, small-for-gestation age (SGA) and the minority is small-due to-curtailed gestation age (SCGA). On the other hand, the proportion of infants weighing less than 2001 g. is only 9% and this figure tallies very close to what has been shown in previous studies conducted in India, to indicate persistence of a biological phenomenon in the country.