[Brachial measurements as nutritional indicators in health term newborns].

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to study the correlations between weight and length and weight index and brachial areas in healthy term newborns as indicators of nutritional status.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

We studied 794 consecutive Caucasian newborns, 377 male and 417 females, with gestational ages of 39 +/- 09 weeks and adequate weights. We measured weight, length, weight/length index, body mass index and weight index. Measurements of the arm perimeter and tricipital skinfold were used to calculate the fatty, lean and total areas by two different methods. Mean, standard deviation and percentiles were utilized in the measurements. The Student's t-test was used to calculate differences and Pearson's test for correlations.

RESULTS

We found that weight, length and weight/length indexes were higher in males than in females, except for the weight index. Brachial areas and parameter were higher in females, except for the lean area. We did not find significant differences between gender in brachial measurements calculated by the different methods. Among the males, we found a high degree of correlation between weight and the weight/length index (r = 0.963; p < 0.0001), and weight and total body area (r = 0.649; p < 0.0001). Similar data were obtained among females, where in addition a high correlation was found between the fat percentage and the body mass index (BMI, r = 0.223; p < 0.0001), as well as between brachial areas and BMI in both genders (p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

In normal newborns, the brachial areas, taken as indicators of body composition, are statistically significantly correlated with the anthropometric parameters widely used to measure the nutritional status of newborns.