AN INTERNATIONAL study on premature babies has found medical conditions such as chronic hypertension and pre-eclampsia play a greater role in the untimely birth and not the mother's sociodemographic status, as was previously thought. The study, using data from the WHO Multi-Country Survey on Maternal and Newborn Health Research Network, examined more than 295,000 single births across 29 countries including Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Australia was not included in the study.

Former UWA alumni Dr Joshua Vogel, who is now based in Switzerland with the World Health Organization, says the study was designed to explore important questions related to why some babies are born too small, and how it could be prevented. "Primarily, the study identified that small for gestational age (SGA) infants are at a significantly higher risk of death or disease, which was seen quite consistently across higher and lower-income countries, and whether the babies were premature or not," he says.

"We also identified potential risk factors for why SGA may have occurred, particularly maternal conditions like high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia." The study found the highest overall prevalence of SGA babies was in Cambodia with 18.8 per cent followed by Nepal (17.9 per cent), the Occupied Palestinian Territory (16.1 per cent) and Japan (16 per cent). Afghanistan with 4.8 per cent had the lowest proportion of SGA babies followed by Uganda (6.6 per cent) and Thailand (9.7 per cent).

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