Abstract:
Background: Low birth weight (LBW) remains the single most important risk factor which
attributed to mortality of 15% -20% of newborns across the globe. Most of the lifecycle cycles
of nutritional outcomes are deeply rooted in birth weight. An infant with low birth weight is
more likely to have stunting in childhood and develop markers of metabolic risk factors at his
later age. Furthermore, LBW is a risk for intergenerational assaults of malnutrition as it is the
risk for sub optimal growth till adulthood, affecting women‟s reproductive capabilities. Thus,
there is enough concern to study the determinants of LBW across setting. Accordingly, this study
was conducted to assess the determinants of low birth weights in Dessie Town, Northeast
Ethiopia.
Methods: A facility based unmatched Case Control study was employed from February to April
2017. The data were collected using structured, pretested interviewer administered questionnaire
in all public health facilities of Dessie Town. Consecutive live births of less than 2500 grams in
each of hospitals and the health centers were selected as cases and succeeding normal weight
babies as controls. Data were entered in to Epi-data software version 3.1 and exported to SPSS
Version 21 and analyzed using frequency, crosstabs and percentage. Factors with p-value <0.25
in Bivariate analysis were entered to multivariable logistic regression and statistical significance
were considered at p-value <0.05.
Results: The mean ± sd of birth weight was 2138.28gm ± 206.87 for cases and 3145.16gm ±
414.99 for controls. After using multivariate logistic regression analysis, iron and folate
supplementation during pregnancy (AOR=2.84(95%CI: 1.15,7.03)), mothers who did not receive
nutritional counseling during the current pregnancy (AOR = 4.05 (95%CI: 1.95, 8.38)), mothers
who did not take additional meal (AOR=3.25(95%CI: 1.64, 6.44)), undernourished mothers
(AOR =5.62(95%CI: 2.64,11.97)), anemic mothers (AOR= 3.54 (95%CI: 1.46,8.61)) and
inadequate MDD-W (AOR=6.65(95%CI: 2.31, 19.16))were found as a risk factor associated for
low birth weight.
Conclusion and recommendations: Lack of nutrition counseling at ANC, lack of iron and
folate supplementation during pregnancy , mothers not receive additional food during pregnancy,
maternal under nutrition, maternal anemia and inadequate M-WDDS were significant
determinants of LBW. The importance of nutritional counseling and iron and folate
supplementation during pregnancy, malnutrition screening and proper identification of high riskmother needs to be strengthened effort to reduce incidence of LBW infants. In addition,
behavioral change communications targeting pregnant women in improving women dietary
diversity needs to be enhanced by health extension workers and health professionals in each
health facility working at ANC clinic
