DETERMINANTS OF LOW BIRTH WEIGHT: A COMMUNITY BASED PROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY

The study aimed at identifying and quantify-ing determinants of low birth weight (LBW) by following a community based prospective cohort of pregnant women in 45 villages in Pune district. In the 1922 live births born to mothers without a chronic illness, in whom birth weight was available within 24 hours, the cumulative incidence of LBW(<2500 g) was 29%. The un-adjusted relative risks for LBW were signifi-cantly higher for lower socio-economic status (RR=1.71), maternal age less than 20 years (RR=1.27), primiparity (RR=1.32>, last preg-nancy interval less than 6 months (RR=1.48), non-pregnant weight less than 40 kg (RR=1.3), height below 145 cm (RR=1.51), hemoglobin less than 9 g/dl (RR=1.53) and third trimester bleeding (RR=1.87). Multivariate logistic re-gression analyis showed that the adjusted odds ratio for LBW decreased with increasing gesta-tional duration, non-pregnant weight, parity and rising education level of the mother. Socio-economic status, non-pregnant weight, maternal height, and severe anemia in pregnancy had substantial attributable risk per-cent for LBW(41.4%, 22.9%, 29.5 % and34.5%, respectively). The findings suggest that selec-tively targetted interventions such as improving maternal education and nutrition, specifically anemia, wider availability of contraception to Birth weight is an important predictor of perinatal and neonatal survival(l). How-ever, much of the information available on low birth weight (LBW) in India is hospital based(2,3). This study was undertaken to identify and quantify the risk factors for LBW using a community based prospective cohort study