[Study on the influence of maternal physiology, mentality and prenatal health care on children born with low birth weight]

Abstract

Objective: To explore the role of maternal physiology, mentality and prenatal health care on low birth weight (LBW).

Methods: A LBW-small for gestation age (SGA)-control group retrospective study was conducted based upon a population of infants born from November 2004 to June 2006. 896 cases involved in this study were entirely under voluntary participation and subject could withdraw their consent at any point. All subject recruitment and enrollment took place at Fujian Provincial Maternal and Children Hospital at the time of delivery. Using chi2 test for single factor analysis and logistic regression for multiple analyses.

Results: There were 15 out of 22 single factors having statistical significances, including 2 maternal psychological, 4 physiological, 6 pathological and 3 prenatal health care factors respectively. When multi-factorial stepwise regression analyses was performed, there were 9 factors for main relative factors of LBW, including women's height, number of prenatal examination, in-normal non-stress test, umbilical cord around the neck, retardation of the umbilical blood flow, week of gestation when the first examination was performed, premature rupture of membrane, preference on the sex of the infant, abnormal family history etc. were influencing the existence of LBW. Awareness on health information appeared to be a protective factor, suggesting that LBW could be prevented during the pregnant period.

Conclusion: Multiple factors seemed to be contributing to the incidence of low birth weight.