Association between maternal work activity on birth weight and gestational age

Objective: To evaluate the effect of maternal employment on birth weight and gestational age. Methods: In this project, 1 272 pregnant women were recruited from whom referred to Tehran hospitals during 1 year via randomized sampling. Data were gathered through history taking and medical records. In this study, 564 employed women were classified as exposure group and 708 housekeepers were as the control group. Chi square test, t-test, One-way ANOVA and logistic regression were used to analyze data. Results: In this study, mean mother age was 25.01 years and mean birth weight was (2 884±684) g. The mean birth weight in housekeepers was significantly higher (2 991±457 g) than employees (2 726±476 g) (P=0.002). The infants' mean birth weights in farmer were the lowest and in office workers (2 831±526 g) was the highest (P<0.01). Gestational age less than 37 weeks was more common among employees. The mean birth weight decreased when the working hours increased (P<0.01). In those mothers who were working less than 3 months there were a higher mean birth weight (P<0.01). Also the mean birth weight decreased due to the hours of standing during a day. Conclusion: Women employment during pregnancy has an important role in low birth weight and preterm labor compared to those who do not work

Growth indices in newborns, Gorgan, North of Iran (2003)

Background & Objective: Health evaluation and growth monitoring of the infant is a visual diagram of growth and primary health services are based on it. In the best option, these indices must be provided separately for each community. This study was done to evaluate growth indices of newborns in Gorgan- Northern Iran. Materials & Methods: In this observational descriptive study which was carried out during (Oct-Nov 2003), all healthy infants without any major abnormality born within 25-42 weeks of gestational age were evaluated in Dezyani Hospital, Gorgan growth indices (head circumference, length and height) were measured in 1011 infants. Gestational age was defined by Balard scoring and delivery type was recorded, too. After entering data into SPSS-10 software, data were analyzed using chi-square, t-test and correlation bivariate. Results: Mean gestational age (±SD) was 39.86±1.72 weeks and most of them were born by vaginal delivery. Amongst them, 3.2% were premature (less than 37 weeks), 4.4% were low birth weight and 0.69% were very low birth weight. Correlation between growth indices and gestational age was significantly positive in all cases (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study showed that growth indices are lower than other parts of Iran. Further investigations needed, especially longitudinally and cross-sectional, to determine the growth indices in this region and in other parts of country