Correlation of foot length and gestational maturity in neonates

2016-07-12T07-40-08Z
Source: International Journal of Contemporary Pediatrics
Sunil Gavhane, Anjali Kale, Akshay Golawankar, Avinash Sangle.
Background: Accurate assessment of gestation maturity is not possible in all newborn infants specially when they are sick and need intensive care support. The aim was to study correlation of foot length (FL) with gestational age and other anthropometric measures at birth among preterm, term and post-term neonates. Methods: Prospective observational study was done. 800 babies born at MGM Medical College Aurangabad from December 2012 to November 2014 were enrolled. FL at birth was measured from the center of the back of the heel to the tip of the big toe. Gestational assessment was done using modified Ballards scoring on day one. Based on gestational age, babies were grouped as preterm, term and post term babies. All the three groups of babies were categorised into small for gestational age (SGA), appropriate for gestational age (AGA) and large for gestational age (LGA) groups using lubchenco intrauterine growth curves. Linear regression analysis was done to investigate the relation of FL to gestational age, birth weight (BW), head circumference (HC) and crown heel length (CHL). Results: There were 52.5% males and 47.5% females. Of the 800 newborns, preterm babies were 124 (15.5%), term babies were 604 (75.5%) and post-term babies were 72 (9%). The mean foot length was 7.42 cm with a range of 4.5-8.8 cm. Foot length correlated significantly (p


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