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. 2013 Jan;88(1):48-53.
doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.2012.12-0371. Epub 2012 Nov 19.

Birthweight in offspring of mothers with high prevalence of helminth and malaria infection in coastal Kenya

Jessica K Fairley  1 , Donal Bisanzio, Charles H King, Uriel Kitron, Peter Mungai, Eric Muchiri, Christopher L King, Indu Malhotra
Affiliations

Birthweight in offspring of mothers with high prevalence of helminth and malaria infection in coastal Kenya

Jessica K Fairley et al. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2013 Jan.

Erratum in

  • Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2014 Dec;91(6):1284

Abstract

Results of studies on the associations of maternal helminth infection and malaria-helminth co-infection on birth outcomes have been mixed. A group of 696 pregnant women from the Kwale district in Kenya were recruited and tested for malaria and helminth infection at delivery. Birthweight was documented for 664 infants. A total of 42.7% of the mothers were infected with Plasmodium falciparum, 30.6% with Schistosoma haematobium, 36.2% with filariasis, 31.5% with hookworm, and 5.9% with Trichuris trichiura; co-infection was present in 46.7%. Low birthweight (LBW) (weight < 2,500 grams) was present in 15.4% of the offspring, and 8.3% had a weight z-score ≤ 2 SD below the World Health Organization mean. Only gravida, age, and locale had a significant association with LBW. The high prevalence of maternal infection coupled with a higher than expected percentage of LBW highlight a need for further investigation of the association of maternal co-infection with LBW.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Maternal infection rates without taking into account co-infection, coastal Kenya.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Comparison of World Health Organization (WHO) mean z-scores (green) to mean z-scores of study infants (red) at day 0 of life at term (≥ 38 weeks gestation), coastal Kenya. Z-scores are not adjusted for gestational age.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Boxplot of birthweights in offspring of mothers with 0, single, or multiple infections (x-axis), coastal Kenya. Solid black lines indicate the medias, white boxes indicate interquartile ranges, and dotted bars indicate extreme values of data (1.5 times interquartile ranges).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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