Relationship between birth weight and biochemical measures of maternal nutritional status at delivery in Bangladeshi urban poors.

A cross-sectional study was carried out to investigate relationship of birth weight with selected biochemical indices of nutritional status of mothers at delivery in poor urban population of Dhaka, Bangladesh. One hundred and fifty one pregnant women of known gestational length, aged 20-30 years, who attended a local maternity hospital for delivery participated in this study. All of them were free from any pregnancy complications or diseases, and delivered a singleton fullterm baby. Socio-economic and obstetric history were taken by interview. Anthropometric data and blood samples were collected on the same day. Twenty per cent of the participants were anaemic (Hb < 11.0 g dl-1), 49% had subnormal (< 4.0 g dl-1) serum albumin and 32.5% had serum vitamin A lower than adequate level (< 30.0 micrograms dl-1). Mothers who gave birth to low birth weight babies had lower levels of haemoglobin (P = 0.06), serum albumin (P = 0.02) and serum vitamin A (P = 0.05) at delivery compared with the mothers who gave birth to normal weight babies. After adjustment for various confounding factors, only serum albumin level remained significantly lower in the mothers of low birth weight babies. Using multiple regression analysis for birth weight, the overall F-ratio was calculated to be 12.5 and was highly significant (P = 0.0000). The adjusted R2 was 0.32. Gestational age, father's occupation, mother's body weight and serum albumin level were found to have significant independent effect on birth weight.