NewsWhore
06-07-2006, 03:13 PM
More than 10% of all babies born in the Dominican Republic are underweight. For the first five months of this year, of 61,200 births, 8,647 of the babies were underweight, a total of 13%. In 2005, of the over 121,000 births, 12,728 (10.58%) were underweight. The current increase in underweight babies is cause for concern, since underweight babies are less resilient when it comes to infections or other problems. Of all of the neonatal deaths reported, a total of 80% were cases of underweight babies. Most of these are premature babies born to very young mothers or undernourished mothers. In reality, in the rural clinics, 32.6% of mothers giving birth are severely undernourished. According to Dr. Luis Rivera, the head of the Perinatology Department at the Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia Maternity Hospital in Santo Domingo, 'underweight' is defined as being below five pounds and eight ounces at birth. International standards call children born at 2lbs "viable", and in the DR, one baby that weighed just 340 grams has survived.
The main causes of underweight babies are poor maternal nutrition, very young or very old age for pregnancy, multiple births, and hypertension during pregnancy. Of course tobacco and alcohol as well as drugs used during pregnancy will lead to underweight babies.
Link To Original Article (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#11)
The main causes of underweight babies are poor maternal nutrition, very young or very old age for pregnancy, multiple births, and hypertension during pregnancy. Of course tobacco and alcohol as well as drugs used during pregnancy will lead to underweight babies.
Link To Original Article (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#11)