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Low Birth Weight in Kuala Lumpur
Author(s) -
Tahir Hashim M.,
Ismail Nik N.,
Gebbie Donald A. M.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
asia‐oceania journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.597
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1447-0756
pISSN - 0389-2328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1447-0756.1991.tb00037.x
Subject(s) - kuala lumpur , medicine , malay , birth weight , obstetrics , low birth weight , parity (physics) , pediatrics , pregnancy , antepartum haemorrhage , gestation , linguistics , philosophy , physics , particle physics , marketing , biology , business , genetics
Low birth weight babies are defined as those weighing under 2,500 g. They make 13.5% of all births at the Maternity Hospital, Kuala Lumpur but contribute to 74.8% of all deaths. They are most likely to be Indian babies and least likely to be Chinese. Among all 3 communities, the primigravidae tend to produce smaller babies than multiparae but this is also true for the Indian of parity more than 3. The Malay teenager is more likely to produce small babies than their older counterparts but not so with the Indian and Chinese. There are definite clinical factors associated with or causing the births of small babies and the lighter the baby, the more influential are these factors. Maternal hypertension, antepartum haemorrhage, multiple pregnancy and unexplained intrauterine death are the 4 outstanding associations with both low birth weight and perinatal death. Although the spontaneous (often premature) onset of labour was the commonest preceding factor, it was much less important in the lowest birth weight groups of babies and was a less important contributor to perinatal death.