A STUDY OF FACTORS AFFECTING BIRTH WEIGHT

Abstract

Study various factors affecting birth weight like utilization of antenatal care, socioeconomic and literacy status of antenatal women, parity, anemia etc and their correlation with low birth weight.Data regarding various risk factors associated with low birth weight in newborn babies was collected from 254 women over a period of 6 months from Civil Hospital Petlad, S K Hospital Karamsad and various practicing gynecologists in Anand district of Gujarat.Mean birth weight of all the newborn babies was found to be 2.63 ± 0.029kg. Proportion of low birth weight babies was 26.8%, with higher incidence in females. Factors responsible for LBW were found to be poverty, illiteracy, low hemoglobin levels, inadequate antenatal care, primiparous and multiparous (³4 number of pregnancies) mothers.Proper utilization of antenatal care is the key factor to prevent low birth weight. Information, Education, Counseling (IEC) activities can help a lot in reducing the incidence of LBW