title: Birth weight for gestational age: a reference study in a tertiary referral hospital in the middle region of Turkey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The purpose of this study was to establish a fetal birth weight curve for gestational age for patients who presented to our tertiary referral hospital. The curve can be used for epidemiological analysis and also to develop Turkey's first national nomogram.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 68,255 live singleton pregnancies delivered during the study period in a tertiary referral hospital were initially reviewed in this study. The data were carefully collected from hospital records and patients' files. Gestational age (weeks) was assessed by either ultrasound examination or according to the patient's last menstrual period, or both. Sex-specific reference tables for fetal birth weight by gestational age were created, and statistical analyses were carried out for descriptive variables using SPSS 15.0 for Windows.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most newborns weighed between 3000 g and 4000 g. The percentile fetal birth weight curves for gestational age showed that fetal birth weight increased with the increase in gestational age. Typically, male infants were noted to have higher birth weights than female infants. When our results were compared with those of previous studies, it was demonstrated that values for the 10(th) percentile were higher in our study, whereas values for the 90(th) percentile were similar to those of previous studies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating the correlation between gestational age and fetal birth weight with such a large sample size in Turkey. Therefore, the results of this reference study can be helpful in defining normal and abnormal fetal growth in Turkish newborns.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Education and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Hasan Onur
authors.initials: HO
authors.lastname: Topçu
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Education and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey. Electronic address: alijnk@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Ali İrfan
authors.initials: Aİ
authors.lastname: Güzel
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Education and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Emre
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ozgü
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Education and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Yunus
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yıldız
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Education and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Salim
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Erkaya
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Education and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Dilek
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Uygur
mesh_terms: D001724:Birth Weight; D005260:Female; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012015:Reference Standards; D062606:Tertiary Care Centers; D014421:Turkey
keywords: birth weight; gestational age; reference growth curves