Size of Sri Lankan newborns at birth

Summary

This prospective population-based study, involving 4,120 births at the Maternity Unit, Teaching Hospital Kandy, in the years 2008 and 2009, was undertaken to determine the mean birth weight of the newborns in the Central Province, Sri Lanka. The mean birth weight of 2,854 g was found to be equivalent with those calculated from several earlier studies. The mean differences in the birth weights of the three major ethnic communities, the Sinhala, the Tamils and the Sri Lankan Moors, were found to be not statistically significant. The gender difference of 60 g (CI 28–92) and the difference between the birth weights of the first and second born, for babies of all three communities were statistically significant, in uniform with those for white Caucasian populations. A graphical production of the mean birth weights is depicted in percentiles, with the mean birth weights of newborns in the UK superimposed on it for comparison.

Keywords::

• Birth weight
• birth order
• ethnicity
• parity

Acknowledgement

We wish to extent our gratitude to Professor R.O. Thattil, Senior Professor of Biometry and Ms Jeromie Krishnamurthy, Temporary Lecturer, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya and Dr Aruna Munasinghe, Senior House Officer, Teaching Hospital Kandy, Sri Lanka, for their help in the statistical analysis.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.