A prospective study on the intrauterine growth of Hong Kong Chinese babies.

Abstract

A prospective study on the birth weight, crown-heel length and head circumference of 8,445 singleton Chinese newborn infants born between 27 and 42 weeks of gestation was conducted in three major regional maternity units in Hong Kong over a 3 1/2-year period. The data were used to construct centile charts for the intrauterine growth of each physical measurement. By careful gestational assessment of the infants, primary exclusion of pregnancies complicated by abnormal fetal or maternal conditions that might have affected fetal growth together with infants of doubtful maturity, these curves depict more accurately the prenatal growth of Chinese infants than those previously published in studies on similar populations of infants. Chinese infants, as shown by the findings of the present study, are similar in their mean weight to Japanese infants and American infants in Denver but are lighter than British and Australian infants, as well as American infants born at sea level.