“Efficacy of Scoring System for Detection of Risk of Low Birth Weight Babies among Antenatal Women”

Abstract

Background- The health of the mother might be reflected in the weight of her newborn. More over 20 million newborns, or 15.5% of all births, have a low weight at birth. 95.6 percent of these babies are born in nations that are developing. About 20% of births in India are affected by LBW. Aim and Objective- ObjectiveTo determine whether or if a scoring system can effectively recognise at-risk prenatal women who may go on to have kids with low birth weight. Material and Methods- The study included 339 pregnant women who went to an antenatal clinic at one of many different types of primary health care facilities. From a pool of eleven PHCs, four were randomly chosen. Women who were pregnant were enrolled in the research until the scoring system predicted 108 infants would be born at a low weight. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to examine the data. Results- Out of 339 antenatal women 108(31.86%) women had delivered LBW babies. Maternal risk factors such as number of meals per day, weight at 1st trimester and weight gain during pregnancy found significant associated with the mean birth weight (P<0.05). Newly developed scoring system was effective for detection of at risk mothers giving birth to low birth weight babies (p < 0.0001). Conclusion- The study concluded that newly developed scoring system was effective for the detection at risk mothers giving birth to low birth weight babies. The scoring system can be used in the different rural health setting where there is no possible resource for detection of at risk mothers giving birth to LBW babies.