Assessment of Socio-Demographic, Maternal and Obstetric Factors Related to Birth Weight of Newborn: A Study at Shri Guru

Low birth weight is a prospective marker of future growth and development and a retrospective marker of mothers nutritional and health status. This study is undertaken to find out proportion of low birth weights in institutional deliveries and factors influencing birth weight of baby. To assess the socio-demographic, maternal and obstetric factors related with birth weight of newborn. Hospital based cross sectional study conducted at Shri Guru Govind Singh Memorial Hospital, Nanded. It was decided to enroll 50% of the mothers who delivered live baby during the study period in the study. A predesigned questionnaire was used to collect the relevant information regarding various sociodemographic, maternal and obstetric factors. Data was entered in Microsoft Excel and analyzed by using statistical software SPSS version 16 for chi-square tests. Out of the total 249 newborns, 128 (51.4%) were having birth weight ≥2.5 Kg and 121 (48.6%) were having birth weight <2.5 Kg. None of the socio-demographic variables like residence, socioeconomic status, education, occupation etc were found to be significantly associated with birth weight of newborn. 62.5% of the preterm babies were LBW while only 46.5% of the term babies were LBW. Inter-pregnancy interval of 2536 months (55.6%) and 49-60 months (71.4%) both were associated with more LBW newborns. 64.7% of those mothers who did not take any ANC care during pregnancy gave birth to LBW newborns. The prevalence of low birth weight in the study population was high. Inter-pregnancy interval, gestational age and number of antenatal visits were significantly associated with birth weight of newborn. It calls for overall improvement in the antenatal services to reduce the burden of LBW as a major public health problem.