Correlation of maternal age with birth weight: need to reemphasize

Abstract

Background: Women at both ends of the reproductive age spectrum have unique outcomes which needs to be considered. Adolescents are at increased risk for anaemia, preterm delivery, fetal growth restriction and preeclampsia. The maternal mortality rate is higher on extremes of the age. However, there is marked variability of the birth wt even with in the age group from 19-35 years of age. The present study was conducted with an objective to assess the correlation of Maternal age with birth weight.Methods: A total of 135 women between age 19-35 years were considered who had delivered at term (n=135) and women with any risk factors were excluded. Women were divided in three groups with age <25 years, 26-30 years and >30 years. Both primigravida and multigravida women were included without considering the mode of delivery.Results: According to birth weight, 113 cases had their birth weight >2.5 kg and out of them 43, 56 and 14 cases belonged to age group <25, 26-30 and >30 years respectively while only 22 cases had their birth weight <2.5 kg and out of them 9, 8 and 5 cases had their age group <25, 26-30 and >30 years. Mean birth weight in age group <25 years was 2.96±0.46 kg, in age group 26-30 years, it was 3.19±0.47 kg and in age group >30 years it was 2.79±0.54. On applying ANOVA test, the difference was found statistically significant (p<0.01).Conclusions: The variation in birth weight with respect to maternal age is significant. Limitation of this study was group comprising of 135 women.

Maternal determinants of low birth weight- a record-based study from a tertiary care centre in central India

“…A similar observation was spotted in a hospital-based study done by Goel showing significant variation in birth weight with maternal age. 11 A study carried out by Wang et al revealed that the risk of LBW increased by 13.3% per year increase in maternal age when maternal age was greater than 36 years. 12 Also, a study done in Ethiopia indicated that mothers above 40 years had greater risk of delivering a baby with LBW.…”