Shifting the birth weight paradigm

Abstract

Birth weight is one of the most important indicators of overall infant health and likelihood of long-term survival. Traditionally, population health researchers have dichotomized this indicator, with the cut-off at so-called “low birth weight” (LBW), defined as those with less than 2,500 grams of mass, and “normal birth weight” for anything exceeding this cut-off.1 LBW has proven to be a useful statistic in a host of population health analyses, from indicating health system performance to predicting health trajectories for individual babies. But a focus on LBW may have taken our attention away from other health concerns associated with other points along the birth weight spectrum. In this paper, we argue that more attention should be paid to those births at the other end of the weight scale, now termed large for gestational age, or LGA, births, which are commonly the result of fetal macrosomia.