Medical Photography by Avantika Singh
Low Birth Weight (LBW) is responsible not only for infant mortality and perinatal morbidity, but it contributes to adolescent and adult morbidity as well. According to Barker’s Hypothesis, intrauterine growth restriction leads to a multitude of adult sequelae including obesity, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, hyperuricemia etc.
In both developed as well as developing countries, LBW is a leading cause of a pronounced financial burden. Preterm and low birth weight infants are responsible for half of the infant hospitalization costs in the United States. Additionally, at least a quarter of all pediatric costs can be attributed to this challenge facing us today.
Thus, it is imperative for us to realize that discovering a preventive strategy for low birth weight will not only help save millions of lives but also help in achieving major financial savings in the long term.
Among its risk factors in developing countries, some significant factors include malnourished mother with inadequate weight gain or anemia, parental smoking, insufficient protein intake by the mother during pregnancy etc. In developed countries majority of low birth weight babies are born as a consequence to pre-term births and multiple births (twins, triplets).
It remains to be established by prospective or retrospective clinical trials whether or not low birth weight is truly preventable (by addressing the known preventable risk factors). Such studies are yet to be carried out on a large scale due to the associated technical and ethical issues. However, it is prudent to assume that addressing preventable risk factors will lead to some impact on the magnitude of this grave problem facing humanity. This can be carried out using humble methods even in the remotest underserved areas. We can begin by simply undertaking mass health education and mass ante-natal care campaigns for screening of mothers at risk for having low birth weight neonates. The existing healthcare workforce can use easy-to-administer questionnaires in vernacular language for the same. Such endeavors can then help to do risk-stratification of mothers for low birth weight and help achieve what remains a dream until now.
— By Avantika Singh, M.B.B.S.
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