Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Short-Term Outcomes of Full-Term Low Birth Weight Infants Born at a Tertiary Academic Center: A Prospective Case-Control Study.

OBJECTIVE: Low birth weight (LBW) infants (<2,500 g) continued to be a global health problem because of the associated short- and long-term adverse outcomes. The study aimed to determine the prevalence, risk factors, and short-term outcomes of term LBW infants STUDY DESIGN: A prospective and case-control study. All infants born consecutively from September 1, 2018 to August 31, 2019 were included. Cases, term LBW infants, were 1:1 matched to controls, appropriate for gestational age (AGA) term infants. Major congenital or chromosomal anomalies and multiple pregnancies were excluded. RESULTS: The prevalence of term LBW in the studied period was 4.8%. Mothers of term LBW infants had significantly lower body mass index (p = 0.05), gained less weight (p = 0.01), had a history of previous LBW (p = 0.01), and lower monthly income (p = 0.04) compared with mothers of term AGA infants even after adjustment for confounders. A nonsignificant higher number of term LBW infants needed NICU admission, while their need for phototherapy was deemed significant. CONCLUSION: We identified nutritional and socioeconomic maternal factors that are significantly associated with LBW infants and should be targeted during antenatal visits to improve neonatal outcomes. KEY POINTS: · LBW infants (<2,500 g) are at risk of short- and long-term morbidities.. · Poor maternal nutritional and socioeconomic factors increase the risk of LBW infant.. · Targeting identified risk factors of LBW infant antenatally improve neonatal outcomes.

Knowledge and attitude toward hemoglobinopathies premarital screening program among unmarried population in western Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the knowledge and attitude toward hemoglobinopathies premarital screening (PMS) program among unmarried population in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1039 unmarried males and females from the general population who fulfilled the eligibility criteria. Data was collected from July-December 2017, using an electronic questionnaire to assess the socio-demographic data, knowledge and attitudes of the participants regarding PMS. Results: Approximately half of the participants had poor knowledge scores (51.1%), while 28.4% of them had fair and 20.5% had good scores. Individuals with an educational level of "university degree and above" had significantly higher knowledge than  those with lower educational levels. Furthermore, 60.4% of the participants had a positive attitude toward PMS. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 21 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA); and a Chi-squared test was used for comparisons between proportions and a p-value ≤0.05 was considered significant. Conclusion: Participants showed a lack of knowledge regarding PMS but they had a positive attitude towards the program. More efforts are required to raise awareness in the public regarding PMS, via social media and educational lectures in schools and universities. Additionally, early genetic screening may help improve test acceptance and higher impact.