Prognostic factors associated with small for gestational age babies in a tertiary care hospital of Western Nepal: A cross-sectional study

Nagendra Chaudhary, Shree Narayan Yadav, Suresh Kumar Kalra, Santosh Pathak, Binod Kumar Gupta, Sandeep Shrestha, Matthew Patel, Imran Satia, Steven Sadhra, Charlotte Emma Bolton, Om Prakash Kurmi

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    Abstract

    Background: Small for gestational age (SGA) is common among newborns in low-income countries like Nepal and has higher immediate mortality and morbidities. Objectives: To study the prevalence and prognostic factors of SGA babies in Western Nepal. Methods: A cross-sectional study (November 2016-October 2017) was conducted in a tertiary care hospital in Western Nepal. Socio-demographic, lifestyle factors including diet, and exposures including smoking and household air pollution in mothers who delivered newborns appropriate for gestational age (AGA), SGA and large for gestational age (LGA) were recorded. Logistic regression was carried out to find the odds ratio of prognostic factors after adjusting for potential confounders. Results: Out of 4000 delivered babies, 77% (n = 3078) were AGA, 20.3% (n = 813) were SGA and 2.7% (n = 109) were LGA. The proportion of female-SGA was greater in comparison to male-SGA (n = 427, 52.5% vs n = 386, 47.5%). SGA babies were born to mothers who had term, preterm, and postterm delivery in the following proportions 70.1%, 19.3%, and 10.6%, respectively. The average weight gain (mean ± SD) by mothers in AGA pregnancies was 10.3 ± 2.4 kg, whereas in SGA were 9.3 ± 2.4 kg. In addition to low socioeconomic status (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.1, 3.2), other prognostic factors associated with SGA were lifestyle factors such as low maternal sleep duration (OR 5.1, CI 3.6, 7.4) and monthly or less frequent meat intake (OR 5.0, CI 3.2, 7.8). Besides smoking (OR 8.8, CI 2.1, 36.3), the other major environmental factor associated with SGA was exposure to household air pollution (OR 5.4, 4.1, 6.9) during pregnancy. Similarly, some of the adverse health conditions associated with a significantly higher risk of SGA were anemia, oligohydramnios, and gestational diabetes. Conclusions: SGA is common in Western Nepal and associated with several modifiable prognostic factors.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numbere250
    Number of pages9
    JournalHealth Science Reports
    Volume4
    Issue number1
    Early online date15 Feb 2021
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2021

    Bibliographical note

    © 2021 The Authors. Health Science Reports published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

    This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

    Keywords

    • appropriate for gestational age
    • household air pollution
    • prognostic factors
    • small for gestational age

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Medicine(all)

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