The low birth weight babies are an alarming sign

That a great percentage of new born babies are underweight in Bangladesh should be a serious concern for all including the relevant government agencies and the health professionals who are working in Bangladesh with maternal mortality and child health.

The high figure of low birth weight babies comes from a global study recently published in The Lancet Global Health.

The concerned people working in Bangladesh in the field must first come up with the reasons why babies with serious low weight are born and then address the problems.

Two common causes in Bangladesh of babies weighing 2.5- kilo are the prevalence of child marriage across the country and poverty that prevent the would-be mothers to take the right kind of nutritious foods.

There is also an overriding lack of awareness among a large number of people that can be behind the birth of low weight babies.

There are still many mothers coming from society’s educated and rather financially well off families who give birth to babies not fully developed in weight. Inherent diseases of mothers also contribute to the malnourished foetus inside the womb.

Therefore, there are multiple reasons for which babies’ are born with low weight that can be potentially a very dangerous problem as underweight newborns who survive also have a greater risk of stunting as well as developmental and health problems, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Not surprisingly, Bangladesh is doing too little to reduce low birth weight. Here undernourishment of mothers is considerably responsible for birth of underweight babies despite these mothers fulfilling the pregnancy term.

We do not expect that the Bangladesh government would provide nutritious foods to mothers of poor families, but it can certainly provide the information on the right kind of nutrition for a pregnant mother and instant medical help to them.

Generation of awareness can play a key role in reducing the percentage in birth of underweight and stunted babies.

It is very alarming: among the 184 nations worldwide five countries have low birth weight rates above 20 percent in the years from 2000 to 2015 and Bangladesh is one of them. And this percentage is increasing.