No abstract

Background: Maternal anemia in pregnancy is common and has several deleterious effects on the health of the mother and the fetus. Maternal anemia is an important risk factor for LBW babies and preterm babies. There exists an insufficient information regarding the adverse effect of anemia during pregnancy especially among rural population. The aim of the study was to determine whether maternal anemia would affect the birth weight of the baby.Methods: The study was conducted in post-natal ward in Sri Venkateshwara Medical College Hospital and Research centre, Ariyur, Puducherry, India a tertiary care hospital in a rural area.Results: About 85% of low birth weight babies were born to mothers with severe maternal anemia with a p value of <0.001 which is statistically significant. None of the mothers who didn't have maternal anemia had low birth weight babies.Conclusions: Maternal anemia is directly proportional to fetal growth. Maternal anemia being an important risk factor for low birth weight should be prevented as early as possible thus helpful in de-creasing the incidence, mortality and morbidity of LBW babies.

Background: One constant observation by Pediatricians during postnatal rounds is that many of the early neonates exhibit a sign with thumb adducted and flexed over the palm and the rest of the fingers flexed over the thumb. In an otherwise normal neonate with no obvious etiological factors, we do come across TIF sign in more than half of the early neonate. This study attempts to know weather this sign is physiological or pathological and what would be the neurological outcome of the neonates exhibiting this sign in the early neonatal period.Methods: The study was conducted in the department of Pediatrics (post-natal ward in) of Sri Venkateshwara Medical College Hospital & Research centre, Ariyur, Puducherry, a tertiary care hospital loacted in a rural area.Results: Among 227 study participants 152(67%) had TIF sign. The infants born after history of fetal distress had higher incidence of TIF sign (76.1%) with a p value 0.05. One significant finding was that all the 7 infants who had language delay had history TIF sign within 7 days of life. The p value was 0.01.Conclusions: The pathological view of the TIF sign is, perhaps, a sign of minimal insult to the developing brain from which it recovers over a period of few months. From our study we conclude that the incidence of TIF sign was about 67 %. Thumb in Flexion sign has clinical significance with etiological factors like fetal distress in apparently healthy full-term infants. The secondary outcome of TIF sign was isolated language delay which was present in babies who had TIF sign within first week of life without neurological deficits up to 1 year of life with statistical significance. Hence it is recommended that the neonates with this sign need periodic neurological evaluation.