DETERMINANTS OF MATERNAL WEIGHTS DURING PREGNANCY AND BIRTH WEIGHT IN THE NORTHERN REGION OF GHANA

Abstract

We obtained secondary data from the Tamale Teaching hospital, in the labour ward at Tamale Metropolitan Assembly. Twins and those mothers who do not attend antenatal for at least three months were excluded. The study was to investigate whether maternal weight gain during pregnancy and socio-economic factors of the mother affect birth weight of the new born baby. Profile analysis (both graphical and MANOVA) was used to study the pattern of maternal weights during pregnancy. Mixed effects modeling approach was used to model maternal weights gain and the generalized linear modeling was used to model birth weight and to describe the relationship between maternal weights, birth weight and the socio –economic factors of the mother. The results show that, maternal weights together with the number of antenatal visit, Gestation age, fundal height, parity and maternal education are all significant determinants of birth weight. The trend model of maternal weight was quadratic indicating that, the maternal weight gain doubled with time and the weight gain for term pregnancy is 9.04kg. The study found BMI, gestation age, fundal height, parity, number of antenatal visits and husband occupation to be the best determinants of birth weight. The study also estimated low birth weight prevalence rate in the region to be 10.60% and normal birth weight rate to be 89.40%.