Mothers tended to overreport categorical infant birth weight of their children.
OBJECTIVE
We validated infant birth weight by interview with mothers.


METHODS
Infant birth weights obtained from maternal interview were compared with the data documented in birth certificates. Study subjects were mothers of 1,432 schoolchildren who participated in a diabetes mass screening program in 1992-1997, Taiwan. Data of infant birth weight obtained from telephone interview with mothers were compared with those from birth certificates to evaluate the accuracy of maternal report in eight categorized groups: <2,000, 2,000-2,499, 2,500-2,999, 3,000-3,499, 3,500-3,999, 4,000-4,499, 4,500-4,999, and >or=5,000 g.


RESULTS
The exact agreement was as low as 15.9% but increased substantially to 67.7% if maternal reports of weight one category higher than birth registry weight were considered to be indicative of agreement. Lower orders of birth weight were significantly associated with reports of higher category. But teen mothers and/or low-income mothers were associated with lower risks of overreport.


CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggested that birth weight-associated studies in Taiwan should "round number" to an upper category rather than a lower category to avoid serious misclassification in birth weight.
Li
Chung-Yi
CY
Department of Public Health, Fu-Jen Catholic University College of Medicine, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan.
Wei
Jung-Nan
JN
Lu
Tsung-Hsueh
TH
Chuang
Lee-Ming
LM
Sung
Fung-Chang
FC
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D001724:Birth Weight; D001835:Body Weight; D002648:Child; D004522:Educational Status; D005220:Fathers / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D011939:Mental Recall; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D009790:Occupations; D012042:Registries; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology