Birth weight reference percentiles for Chinese

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 8; p. e104779
• Main Authors: Dai, Li, Deng, Changfei, Li, Yanhua, Zhu, Jun, Mu, Yi, Deng, Ying, Mao, Meng, Wang, Yanping, Li, Qi, Ma, Shuangge, Ma, Xiaomei, Zhang, Yawei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 15-08-2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Age; Asian Continental Ancestry Group; Biology and Life Sciences; Birth defects; Birth Weight; China; Congenital defects; Diabetes; Education; Female; Fetuses; Gestation; Gestational Age; Gynecology; Health surveillance; Humans; Hypertension; Infant, Newborn; Infants; Laboratories; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Newborn babies; Obstetrics; Pediatrics; Population; Population Surveillance; Pregnancy; Premature birth; Prenatal development; Public health; Reference Values; Socioeconomic factors; Ultrasonic imaging; Womens health; China; United States > US; Connecticut
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104779

To develop a reference of population-based gestational age-specific birth weight percentiles for contemporary Chinese.
Birth weight data was collected by the China National Population-based Birth Defects Surveillance System. A total of 1,105,214 live singleton births aged ≥28 weeks of gestation without birth defects during 2006-2010 were included. The lambda-mu-sigma method was utilized to generate percentiles and curves.
Gestational age-specific birth weight percentiles for male and female infants were constructed separately. Significant differences were observed between the current reference and other references developed for Chinese or non-Chinese infants.
There have been moderate increases in birth weight percentiles for Chinese infants of both sexes and most gestational ages since 1980s, suggesting the importance of utilizing an updated national reference for both clinical and research purposes.