Assessment of Reference Curves of Birth Weight, Length, and Head Circumference for Gestational Ages: A Study from Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Abstract

The reference curve for birth weight has been designed to predict neonates who are at risk and who need to be evaluated and monitored. Around 8 years ago, Indonesian reference curves were created based solely on data from teaching hospitals with a small range of gestational ages. The prevalence of high risk newborns depends on the birth curve used. The objectives of this study were to compare the birth weight curves of boys and girls, first children and later children, and those in earlier research, as well as to update the reference curves for birth weight, length, and head circumference. Data were extracted from the Maternal-Perinatal database. Only live singletons with gestational ages of 26 - 42 weeks and were delivered or referred within 24 hours of age to Sardjito Hospital, five district hospitals and five health centers in Yogyakarta were included. There were 54,599 singleton live births. Growth curves were constructed for boys (53.3%) and girls (46.7%) for birth weight, length, and head circumference. In first- born-children, however, it was significantly lower than that of later-born-children. When compared to Lubchenco's study, the mean birth weight was lower. Compared with the previous Indonesian study by Alisyahbana, there were no differences for the aterm infants, but there was a lower mean birth weight in preterm infants. It was critical to identify newborns in need of care and to classify high risk newborns in a particular area using updated neonatal reference curves for birth weight, length, and head circumference.