Occupation, Caloric Intake and Rest during Day Time of Pregnant Women and Birth Weight and Gestational Age of the Baby

Abstract

With the social and economic changes in recent years, women's role has also significantly changed and with a considerable share of the job market, i.e., 42%. If the burden of pregnancy and child birth is added to it, it could be stressful to the mother and likely to affect the birth weight as well as gestational age of the baby adversely. A study to find out relationship between occupation of women and the birth weight and gestational age of the baby was undertaken at Krishna Hospital; Karad. The data was collected on randomly selected 380 pregnant women by using structured interview schedule at registration and followed them till delivery. Data was analyzed in respect to the objectives of the study by using descriptive and inferential statistics. There were 23(6.0%) heavy workers. All of them were working on road construction sites and delivered 19(82.8%) Low Birth Weight (LBW) babies out of them 06(26.1%) were preterm births. The mean birth weight and Gestational age of babies born to heavy workers were 2199.1 ± 488.5g and 262.3±18.6 days as compared to 2764.4 ± 463.7g and 274.0±13.4 days for moderate workers 2688.8± 475.5g and 275.6±13.1 days for sedentary workers respectively. The study concluded that heavy maternal physical activity had a significant deleterious effect on birth weight and gestational age.