The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 127 No. 10 October 1997, pp. 1950-1956
Copyright ©1997 by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences

Postnatal Growth Patterns of Full-Term Low Birth Weight Infants in Northeast Brazil Are Related to Socioeconomic Status

Ann Ashworth^*, , Saul S. Morris, and Pedro I. C. Lira^*,

^* Centre for Human Nutrition, Department of Public Health and Policy, and  Maternal and Child Epidemiology Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Population Sciences, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom and  Departamento de Nutrição do Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, CEP51320-210 Recife-PE, Brazil

Low birth weight has many adverse consequences, some of which might be ameliorated if there is good postnatal compensatory, or catch-up, growth. We monitored growth, morbidity and feeding patterns in a cohort of 133 full-term, low birth weight infants from poor families in Pernambuco, Brazil, and investigated the relative contributions of a number of socioeconomic, maternal and infant variables to postnatal growth. Growth was measured at 4, 8, 17, 26 and 52 wk of age. Differential growth patterns were most marked during the first 8 wk of life, and the gains in z-score during this interval were strongly associated with attained z-scores at 12 months (r = 0.62 for weight and 0.64 for length). In a multivariate model, socioeconomic variables explained 21.4% of the variation in maximum gain in weight-for-age z-score achieved during the 12-month period, maternal weight explained a further 4.4%, infant birth length 4.7% and neonatal illness 5.4%. For maximum gain in length-for-age z-score, socioeconomic variables accounted for 24.4% of the variance, maternal height 4.9%, maternal smoking 3.3% and neonatal illness 3.1%. We surmise that the early differential growth patterns are set in utero and are indirectly affected prenatally by socioeconomic status.