ABSTRACT
Maternal characteristics have been reported previously to have impact on the progress and outcome of pregnancy, especially those related to birth weight (BW)and perinatal mortality. Birth weight plays an important role in infant survival, child development, and adult metabolic diseases. The present study aimed at investigating the influence of maternal anthropometry, demography and health conditions on neonatal or newborn anthropometry in Gombe, Gombe state, Nigeria. A data set of 10,586 singleton live births from 2001-2014 was retrieved from maternity registers at the labour ward, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, Gombe State, Nigeria. Male infants (n = 5660; 53.5 %) while female infants (n = 4926; 46.5 %). The information extracted were:maternal age at the time of delivery, parity, mode of delivery, infant birth weight (BW), placental weight (PW), head circumference (HC), chest circumference (CC), birth length (BL), sex of the infant, Apgar score (AS) of the infant at 1ST and 5TH of life. For mother and infant pair, only two thousand, two hundred and seventy six (2276) infants had information on their mother's health conditions during pregnancy, demography and anthropometric measurements retrieved from hospital records at the department of Biostatistics and medical records due to lack of accessibility. Maternal health conditions extracted included: diabetes mellitus, HIV infection, malaria infection, blood pressure; maternal anthropometric measurements retrieved included: height, weight, gestational weight gain and body mass index (BMI) and maternal and paternal socio-demographic information retrieved were: place of residence, ethnicity, marital status, occupation, and level of education. Results from this study show that low birth weight birth (LBW) was more frequent among female infants compared to male infants, (P = 0.001). Mothers age less than 20 years (<20 years) and greater than or equal to 40 (≥ 40) had more incidence of low birth weight (LBW) delivery than mothers age 20 to 30 years and 31 to 39 years, (P= 0.001). Low birth weight was more prevalent in infants born preterm (<37 completed weeks) compared to those born at term (37 completed weeks), (P = 0.001). Low birth weight delivery was more prevalent in mothers with no education and least among mothers with tertiary education (P = 0.001). It was found that the prevalence of LBW was least among infants that had fathers with tertiary education and more in infants that had fathers with no education, (P = 0.001). The mean BW of male and female babies were respectively 3.15 Â� 0.53 and 3.01 Â� 0.52 (t = -14.128, p < 0.001). Also, there was significant difference in other anthropometric parameters (BL, HC, CC and PW) between male and female babies with male babies having higher values, (p < 0.001). Regarding mode of delivery (MOD), the mean BW and PW of newborns delivered via vacuum delivery were significantly higher than those delivered via caesarean section (CS), forceps and spontaneous vaginal delivery (SVD),(p<0.001). The BW and PW of newborns delivered to mothers with tertiary education were significantly higher than those delivered to mothers with secondary, primary and no formal education (p<0.001). Also BW and PW of those delivered to married mothers were significantly higher than those delivered to single or unmarried mothers (p < 0.001). Birth weight (BW) and placental weight (PW) of infants delivered to diabetic mothers were higher than those delivered to non-diabetic mothers (p < 0.001). Also, BW and PW of infantsdelivered to mothers who never had an episode of malarial attacked during pregnancy were significantly higher than those inmothers who had at least an episode of malarial attacked (p < 0.001). Also, the BW and PW of infants in mothers that were normotensive and hypertensive mothers were significantly higher than those in hypotensive mothers (P<0.001). Birth weight of infants correlated positively with all maternal anthropometric variables at (P<0.001). Linear regression models for estimating birth weight (BW) of newborns from maternal and newborn anthropometric and demographic variables were generated. In conclusion, male babies or newborns had significantly higher birth weight, placental weight, birth length, head and chest circumferences relative to female babies. Also maternal ill health during pregnancy negatively influenced newborn anthropometry.