Prevalence of skin disease among adolescent girls and their impact on quality of life

Abstract

Introduction: Preterm birth is the leading cause of death in children younger than 5 yearsworldwide. Although preterm survival rates have increased in high-income countries, pretermnewborns still die because of a lack of adequate newborn care in many low-income and middle-income countries. This study was aimed to find out the effectiveness of anthropometricmeasurement, a simple and inexpensive method, for identifying premature babies at birth. Method:We conducted a cross-sectional study in a tertiary care hospital with 350 consecutively live-bornnewborns. Their birth weight, mid-arm circumference, length and head circumference weremeasured and compared with gestational age assessed by New Ballard score. We summarized thevariables using descriptive statistics, and the strength of association was determined throughcorrelation analysis. The correlation was strong for head circumference. Linear regression analysiswas done to develop predictive equations. Result: Amongst 350 newborns, 76% were term and24% were preterm. Pearson's correlation coefficient between gestational age as assessed by NewBallard score and head circumference, birth weight, mid-arm circumference and length all showed asignificant positive correlation in the decreasing order [maximum with head circumference (r =0.566)]. Linear regression analysis was done to develop predictive equations. Conclusion: Headcircumference measurement can be a surrogate marker to predict prematurity as a significantcorrelation is seen between it and gestational age assessed by the New Ballard score. Furtherstudies are needed to cross-validate our result.