ABSTRACT
Low birth weight is still important health problem in many countries. Children's low birth weight increases mortality, injures central nervous system, somatic, interferes with intellectual and emotional development. Low birth weight is frequently occurring in Poland--between 7-9% of live births. There are many risk factors, among them behavioural and environmental. In Poland an attention was put on chemical and physical environmental factors. Behavioural factors (stress) are disregarded. In the present paper it was decided to check the relationship between stress during pregnancy (estimated by pregnant), child birth weight and frequency of low birth weight. The research was carried out by use of a questionnaire using the "case-control study". In the research were involved 450 mothers of new-born children (the group of cases: untimely, premature delivery or child birth weight below 2500 g) and 450 mothers of new-born children (control group-physiologically delivered). Mothers were asked about their relations to the pregnancy; professional and personal stress during pregnancy was estimated. The results were analysed by counting risk ratio coefficient (RR) and correlation coefficient. The research showed, that there is no relation between acceptation of pregnancy, stress and frequency of low birth weight or the average child birth weight. The researches didn't prove unfavourable influence of stress reaction caused by professional and personal stressors on intrauterine foetus development.
