Low birth weight is associated with increased deaths in infancy and adolescence, shows study

Low birth weight is associated with increased death rates in infancy, later childhood, and adolescence, shows a study of live births in England and Wales that underlines the importance of women’s health before pregnancy in improving the health of their children.1 Researchers followed up all live births in England and Wales from 1 January 1993 to 31 December 2011. They categorised the 12 355 251 babies in the study by birth weight, defining very low birthweight babies as weighing 500-1499 g (n=139 608) and low birthweight babies as 1500-2499 g (n=759 283). Normal birthweight babies were categorised into two groups: …