title: Using mothers' and newborns' clinical anthropometric data to analyse birth histories.
abstract: The aim of the study was to measure the effect of mothers' and babies' various anthropometric parameters on the deviation from the normal course of pregnancy and labour. For this purpose the clinical anthropometric parameters of 532 parturients (primipara) and their newborns, and some additional indices formed from these data were correlated with the sum in points of all individual deviations from the normal course of anamnesis, pregnancy and childbirth as independent risk factors ("birth index" BI). The analysis showed that mothers' and babies' anthropometric data are essential co-factors in the formation of the total risk for mothers' and babies' health. Our investigation has demonstrated that a two-dimensional classification formed from height and parturient's complex body build index (PCBBI) (3 x 3 SD classes with appropriate statistical data-processing) can form a common methodological basis for using anthropometric characteristics in evaluation of obstetric data. As in the future analogous classifications could be used on obstetric material by different authors, the content of all corresponding classes--the mean values of newborns' birthweight and the birth index--would also be statistically comparable.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Physical Anthropology, University of Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Raud
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kaarma
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koskel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000886:Anthropometry; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008423:Maternal Age; D009035:Mothers; D011247:Pregnancy; D012189:Retrospective Studies