Determinants of Low Birth Weight among New-Born Delivered at Public Hospital in Silte Zone, Southern Ethiopia: Case Control Study

Background: There is high incidence of neonatal death in Ethiopia. There are various factors that contribute to neonatal death. Low Birth Weight (LBW) contributes for about half of infant death. Identification of modifiable determinants of LBW for potential interventions has received little attention in southern parts of Ethiopia.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify determinants of LBW among mothers delivered at hospitals in Silte Zone, Southern Ethiopia.

Methods: A hospital-based unmatched case-control study was conducted in all public hospitals of Silte Zone. In the study, the number of mothers, cases and controls from each hospital was recruited using probability proportion to population size. Baby born with weight less than 2500 gm were taken as a case where as a preceding three baby with birth weight of more than or equal to 2500 gm was taken as control during study time in consecutive manner. Data was collected using pretested structured questionnaire, and by anthropometric measurements. Data was entered in to Epi Info 3.5.4 and exported to SPSS Version 20 software. Descriptive analysis and binary logistic regression model was used to calculate Odds Ratio with 95% confidence intervals to estimate the association between the dependent and independent variables. Variables with a p-value less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.

Result: The mean ± SD of birth weight of was 2174.47 gm ± 266.2 for cases and 3370.48 gm ± 446.48 for controls. After using multivariate logistic regression analysis, mothers who did not receive iron folate during pregnancy [AOR=2.84(1.15,7.03)], mothers who had anaemia (haemoglobin <11 mg/ dl) during pregnancy [AOR=1.03(1.12, 6.24)], mothers who did not take additional meal [AOR=3.25(1.64,6.44)], mothers who did not receive nutritional counselling during the current pregnancy [AOR=6.93(4.80,11.76)], maternal under nutrition [AOR=3.62(2.64,6.47)], hypertensive disorder related to pregnancy [AOR=2.76(1.34,5.71)] and inadequate Minimum Dietary Diversity Assessment(MDD-W) [AOR=6.65(2.31,10.16)] were found as an independent and significant predictors of Low Birth Weight.

Conclusion: Maternal under nutrition, mothers not receiving iron folate during pregnancy, mother who had anaemia, lack oftarget nutritional counselling, mothers who did not receive additional food during pregnancy, hypertensive disorder related to pregnancy and inadequate MDD-W were significant determinants of LBW. The importance of nutritional counselling with iron folate supplements, adherence during pregnancy and maternal under nutrition screening needs to be strengthened effort to reduce incidence of LBW infants.

Author(s): Yasin Awol Wabe, Mubarek Hussen Mohammed, Musa Mohammed Ali

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