PURSE 1998

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Browsing PURSE 1998 by Author "Athaudaarachchi, P. M."

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    Effect of the maternal factors during pregnancy on the birth weight of neonates.
    (University of Peradeniya, 1998-11-07) Athaudaarachchi, P. M.; De Silva, Y. A. S.; Gunaratne, C.; Jayasinghe, C. P.; Jayaweera, T. S.
    The effect of maternal physical activity, nutrition, psycho-social stress and socio-economic status during pregnancy, on the birth weight of neonates was studied. A quota sampling method was used to collect data from 258 eligible Sinhalese postnatal women and their neonates, by direct interviews and by anthropometric measurements at 3 hospitals in Kandy, on randomly decided dates between 27/03/1997 and 20/0411997. Using a scoring system which considered severity and duration of physical activity during pregnancy, the mothers were divided in to high and low work groups and the mean birth weights of their neonates compared using Student's t-test. The body fat content of the mother was estimated using triceps skinfold thickness and used as an index of her overall nutritional status to analyse it's correlation with the birth weight of the neonates using Pearson'scorrelation test. Maternal height, postnatal weight and postnatal body mass index was also similarly used for correlation, but the latter two were found to be inconsistent indices. The responses given to a questionnaire on psycho-social stress at work and at home was used to group the mothers in to "minimally stressed" and "stressed" groups, and the mean birth weights of their neonates compared using Student's t-test. Employing a scoring systemdivided by us, which considered percapita income, house and property, education andoccupation the mothers were divided in to three classes and the mean birth weights of their neonates compared using Student's t-test. The significance of difference of the incidence of low birht weights was also assessed using Chi square test. The significance of the difference of mean birth weight of neonates was very high (p