Original Research Article
Year: 2019 | Month: August | Volume: 9 | Issue: 8 | Pages: 376-383
Prevalence of Low Birth Weight and Associated Maternal Risk Factors among the Term Neonates during Normal Deliveries in Jammu, J&K
Priyanka Anand, Rahul Gupta, Jaspreet Kour Sudan
Department of Statistics, University of Jammu, Jammu,Jammu and Kashmir, India, 180006
Corresponding Author: Priyanka Anand
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Weight of a neonate at the time of birth remains a significant factor which indicates its survival and growth. The present study has tried to focus in determining the prevalence and associated factors of low birth weight.
Methods: A cross-sectional hospital based survey was conducted. The study participants consisting of 330 postnatal women including term single live birth at a government Hospital, Jammu for the study period of September 2016 to July 2017. Binary logistic regression was used to find the association between dependent variable (LBW) and independent variables. Hosmer and Lemeshow Test is used for the model accuracy test in binary logistic regression. Pseudo R-square was used to find the strength of binary logistic regression.
Results: Out of 330 respondents, the prevalence of LBW was 28.8%. LBW was associated with the risk factors like maternal age, rest received in the afternoon during pregnancy and gestational anaemia. The likelihood of having LBW babies was 2.37 times higher among the postnatal women with age group < 20 and ≥30, 2.53 times higher among those who had taken less than two hours of rest in the afternoon during pregnancy and 1.50 times higher among those women who suffered from gestational anaemia. The variability in LBW due to these risk factors was found to be 14.9% to 27.0%.
Conclusion: Prevalence of low birth weight in our study was found out to be high. The occurrence of low birth weight can be reduced by increasing the literacy rate among the females.
Key words: Low Birth Weight, Maternal Risk Factors, Neonates, Postnatal and Prevalence.