Proportion with low birth weight infants in an Indian population and its relationship with maternal age and parity.

The overall proportion of low birth weight infants is found to be relatively higher in the Indian population. Data collected from two hospitals in Calcutta, India indicate that although the proportion of infants weighing less than 2,001 g is approximately 10%, the dependence of this proportion on maternal age and parity is similar to the studies conducted elsewhere, suggesting a definite biological significance of the phenomenon. The proportion of low birth weight infants is found to be the greatest for the first and late pregnancies, the minimum being at the third birth rank. Young mothers showed a tendency to have an increasing proportion of low birth weight infants with increasing birth order; whereas for older mothers a general U-shaped dependence of the proportion on parity is suggest from the analysis.