THE EFFECTS OF WEATHERING DEMONSTRATED BY MATERNAL AGE ON LOW BIRTH WEIGHT OUTCOME IN BABIES

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Increasing age has been hypothesized with wear and tear (weathering) in mothers,which may result to low birthweight of their babies. The prevalence of low birthweight could beheightened if maternal weathering is associated with poor maternal socioeconomic variables. In thiscurrent study, we analyzed the effects of maternal weathering on babies’ birthweights.METHODS: One hundred and twenty four mother-baby pairs were selected using systematic randomsampling method. Maternal age formed part of the demographic data that was obtained from themothers’ case notes and from interviews held with them. Maternal socioeconomic variables wereassessed using Oyedeji’s parameters and birthweights of babies were determined using bassinet weighingscale. Associations between maternal socioeconomic variables and birthweight of babies were assessedusing univariate analysis. Differences in mean birthweight of babies according to their maternal agewere evaluated using one-way analysis of variance ANOVA.RESULTS: Among the 124 babies, 66(53.2%) were males and 58(46.8%) females of whom the majority104(83.9%, had normal birthweight. The mean birthweight of babies was 3.05±0.57 (95% CI, 2.95–3.15)kg, while the mean maternal age was 23.60 (5.2) 95% CI, (22.68–24.52) years. The difference betweenmean birthweight of babies and mean maternal age was not significant (F=1.35, p=0.255). Similarly, theassociation between birthweight, maternal education and occupation computed using univariate analysiswas not significant (F=2.163, p=0.120) for education and (F=1.825, p=0.166) for occupation.CONCLUSION: In this study, maternal weathering was not found to be associated with LBW outcome.This implies that an increase in maternal age may not be significantly associated with LBW. However,there is need for further research on this subject from different centers using larger sample size in orderto enhance the precision of the study.