Background: Maternal nutritional status during pregnancy has been a known factor to have significant impact on pregnancy outcomes, especially on birth weight.
Objective: To find the correlations between maternal anthropometry at the third trimester and birth weight of the infant.
Material and methods: Cross sectional, hospital based study. Maternal height, weight and newborn weight were measured using standard techniques. The study was conducted for a period of 3 months (November, 2010- February, 2011) in and around Churachandpur hospitals and maternity clinic. 219 Paite mother-infant pairs formed the study. Mothers who completed 37 weeks of pregnancy were included in the study. Twins and babies born out of HIV positive mothers are excluded. It is a population-based study.
Results: The mean birth weight of the present study is 3.19 kg, and the mean maternal weight; height and BMI are 57.83 kg, 152.44 cm and 24.85 respectively. The present study showed significant positive correlations between maternal weight and birth weight (r = 0.25), maternal height and birth weight (r =0.20), maternal body mass index and birth weight (r = 0.19).
Conclusion: Maternal weight, height and BMI are good predictors of birth weight and can be recommended for use among peripheral health workers for detection of mothers at risk of delivering big or low birth weight babies in Churachandpur town.