Maternal risk factors associated with term low birth weight in India: A review

Abstract

Low birth weight is one of the leading factors for infant morbidity and mortality. To a large extent affect, various maternal risk factors are associated with pregnancy outcomes by increasing odds of delivering an infant with low birth weight. Despite this association, understanding the maternal risk factors affecting term low birth weight has been a challenging task. To date, limited studies have been conducted in India that exert independent magnitude of these effects on term low birth weight. The aim of this review is to examine the current knowledge of maternal risk factors that contribute to term low birth weight in the Indian population. In order to identify the potentially relevant articles, an extensive literature search was conducted using PubMed, Goggle Scholar and IndMed databases (1993 – Dec 2020). Our results indi­cate that maternal age, educational status, socio-economic status, ethnicity, parity, pre-pregnancy weight, maternal stature, maternal body mass index, obstetric history, maternal anaemia, gestational weight gain, short pregnancy outcome, hypertension during pregnancy, infection, antepartum haemorrhage, tobacco consumption, maternal occupation, maternal psychological stress, alcohol consumption, antenatal care and mid-upper arm circumference have all independent effects on term low birth weight in the Indian pop­ulation. Further, we argue that exploration for various other dimensions of maternal factors and underlying pathways can be useful for a better understanding of how it exerts independent association on term low birth weight in the Indian sub-continent.

Association of Low Birth Weight with the Risk of Childhood Stunting in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…In recent years, low birth weight has emerged as a major risk factor that increases the risk of childhood stunting, but the exact biological pathway is still under investigation. LBW can be caused either by prematurity or intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) or both [17]. LBW becomes one of the main contributors to neonatal morbidity and mortality [18] and also increases the risk of morbidity and mortality during childhood [19], but the strength of the association varies across studies and the mediating mechanisms remain unclear [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34].…”