Customized birthweight standards for a Spanish population

Objective: To analyse the biological factors affecting birthweight and to derive customized birthweight standards for a Spanish population. Methods: A retrospective cohort was created with all the singleton pregnancies delivered at term and free of pathology in our Institution. Birthweight was modeled by multiple linear regression from maternal (ethnic origin, maternal height, booking weight, smoking, and parity), and fetal (gender, gestational age) characteristics. Results: In addition to gestational age and sex, height, booking weight, ethnic origin, parity, and smoking all have significant and independent effects on birthweight. Women from East-Asia, Morocco and South-America had newborns on average 83 g, 74 g and 95 g heavier than White-European Spanish women. The effect of smoking was found to be dose-related. Conclusion: We found the relative effect of the maternal and fetal characteristics to be very similar to that reported in previous studies. We report coefficients for ethnic groups that account for a sizeable proportion of the population composition of several European countries. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.