Anthropometric Determinants of low birth weight in newborns of
Hoshiarpur district (Punjab)- A hospital based study.
I.
Introduction
A. Background information about the subject
1. The research took place in 4 private hospitals of Hoshirarpur district of India. The
scientist did the research on 504 mothers between the ages of 20-35 for low birth
weight of newborn babies.
2. The scientist chose this subject because they want to find out what cause the
illness or weakness of the babies so that they can prevent it from happening later.
Low birth weight is a very sensitive subject for parents and by doing this research
it will decrease the mortality rate and will increase the likelihood of the newborns
to survive.
B. The scientist did the research is to determine the best surrogate anthropometric
measurement to determine low birth weight newborns among institute deliveries in
the district of Hoshiarpur.
1. The information that the researcher tried to gather are the size of the newborns,
weight, and height to determine the low birth weight.
2. This topic is value because we need to identify the low birth weight babies so that
we can prevent it from happening. It is very important to the world especially the
health worker in north India to identify the low birth weight to prevent the risk of
losing the child.
C. The researcher hypothesis, in order to reduce neonatal risks such as death and injury
early identification is important.
II.
Material and methods
A. The experiment that they did was, they gathered 504 singlet pregnant women that were
on their last trimester to the hospital. After the babies are born 48 hours, the
measurements were taken. If the baby weight less than 2.5 lbs were labeled as low birth
weight. All newborns were measure from head to toes.
B. The technique that they used was measuring the newborns.
III.
Result
A. The result found that there were 20.23 percent of the total babies that were low birth
weight. There were 56.86% males and 43.14% were female among newborn low birth
weight. Normal weight newborns were 53.23% males and 43.14% females. Male neborn
had higher percentage than female but that were found to be unnecessarily. After looking
into the case of 2009-2010 of measuring newborn’s crown heel length, head
circumference, chest, mid arm, abdominal, thigh, calf, subscapular skinfold, biceps,
triceps, thigh skinfold, and R-square the research had determined that mid arm
circumference appeared to be best surrogate measurement to identify low birth weight
followed by chest circumference.
B. There weren’t anything that surprising the scientists during this research. Not to what I
have read anyway.
IV.
Discussion
A. The result is mean that low birth weight is very high in India and it contributes to
neonatal mortality.
1. The scientist compared the percentage of newborn with low birth weight in India to
other countries like Nepal and Tanzania. India has 30% of low birth weight; Nepal
has 8.5%, and Tanzania 18%-8%. The study was based on the population. This means
that India is higher than average low birth weight.
2. They did gather enough information.
B. The limitation of the study was 504 newborns. It might be more helpful if they study in a
bigger population. Beside in India I believe they should do multiple location instead just
one.