Comparison of Maternal predictive factors for Underweight between Low Birth and Normal Weight at Al-Zahra Hospital in Rasht in 2018

  Background & objectives: Low birth weight is considered one of the most serious health problems in the world that puts tremendous pressure on the health care system and family. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between some maternal risk factors and low birth weight. Methods: The present study was a cross- sectional study performed on 264 cases. The data gathering tool was a checklist with two parts to compare two groups in this research. The first part was related to the infant's characteristics (sex, weight, and gestational age of the newborn), and the second part related to maternal characteristics. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Inferential statistics including Mann–Whitney u, chi-square, fisher exact test and logistic regression were used to investigate the relationship between the variables. Results: In this study, the level of education was lower in mothers with term low birth weight neonates (p=0.024), also normal delivery was reported more frequently among mothers with low birth weight infants (p=0.0001). Also, the mean BMI and the weight at the beginning of pregnancy and overweight in mothers with term neonates and normal weight were greater (p=0.0001, in all). The first minute Apgar score and the fifth minute Apgar score were lower in mothers with low-birth term infants (p=0.002 and p=0.0001). Also distinguished that the gestational age (week) was lower in mothers with low-birth term infants (p=0.0001). Conclusion: According to the results, increasing progress the pregnancy per week makes it possible to increase the normal weight of newborns by 3.11%.