Abstract

Background:Although birth weight is a key predictor of health and survival of a baby, most developing countries often lack this information for various reasons. Under such circumstances, mother’s perceived knowledge about the size of her baby has been advocated as an alternative indicator for birth weight.
Objective:The aim of this paper is to estimate the incidence of small size babies as perceived by mothers and identify its risk factors.
Methods:The data for the study come from the 2011 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. Descriptive statistical methods, statistical test and multilevel logistic regression model were used for data analysis.
Results:Out of 8,588 children born within five years of the survey, 1,485 (17.2%) were reported as small in size at birth in Bangladesh. The mean age of mothers at birth of their children was 25.6 years (min 14 and max 48). Most of the mothers (74%) received either no antenatal care (ANC) visits (33%) or small (or inadequate) number (less than 4) of ANC visits (41%). No ANC or inadequate ANC appeared as a significant predictor of small size babies. Mother’s education, parity, pregnancy planning, and region of residence are the other significant determinants of having small size babies. Female babies have 1.3 times more risk to be smaller in size than male babies.
Conclusion:The findings emphasize on the need for targeted intervention for those groups of mothers who were identified with higher risk of having small size baby. More intensive antenatal care visits, counselling and support could help reduce the risk of having small size baby.