| Gestational age-specific measurements of birth weight, body length, and head circumference are essential information required for the evaluation of the prenatal growth of newborns. They are also useful for identifying infants who are at risk of developing complications during the neonatal period and therefore require detailed assessment and close observation.;Few studies have dealt with velocities of fetal growths. I determined the growth velocities of a number of physical parameters from the cross-sectional data obtained from newborns delivered at various gestations by the "interval method" described by Guihard-Costa (Guihard-Costa 1992 I). Some differences in the growth velocity rhythm were observed between the Caucasian and Chinese infants, suggesting an ethnic different in fetal growth.;Using stepwise multivariate linear regressions, the association of the physical traits of newborns of 27--42 gestational weeks with a number of parental. socioeconomic and physical factors was evaluated. The results show that gestation, sex, parity, gravidity, maternal age, maternal birth place, maternal origin, duration of mother living in Hong Kong, parental height, parental weight, maternal smoking and antenatal leave were all significantly associated with the infants' size at birth.;In summary, this study has updated the gestation-specific percentile curves on body weight, body length and head circumference for the local Chinese newborns. It also provides the first set of gestation-specific data of other physical measurements including the limb, trunk and penile measurements. It is also the first study in the cranial facial measurements of newborn infants. By demonstrating a difference in the fetal growth velocity between Chinese and French infants, this study provides some evidence that an ethnic difference in prenatal growth. The study is in addition the first local study carried out to investigate the relationship between size at birth and a number of parental factors. As a byproduct a reliable and simple method in assessing birth weight using simple anthropometric measurements was created.;Besides the above measurements, a variety of other physical measurements (e.g. craniofacies, trunk, limbs and penile length of male infants) are of diagnostic and prognostic importance. By obtaining the relevant physical measurements from 4400 singleton Chinese newborns delivered at gestational 27--42 weeks, this study provides gestational-specific data on a number of physical parameters appropriate for the local Chinese population. Data for the percentile curves for the craniofacial measurements were calculated using the LMS method (Cole 1992). Percentile curves of other physical measurements at each gestational age were established by the method of Altman and Citty (Altman and Citty 1994). |
