Magnitude and Associated Factors of Low Birth Weight among Term Newborns Delivered in Addis Ababa Public Hospitals, Ethiopia, 2021

Abstract Background: Low birth weight (LBW) accounts for 60% to 80% of all neonatal deaths each year. In developing countries like Ethiopia, low birth weight is a major public health concern. Almost half of the world's infants are not weighed at birth, a figure that is especially high in Sub-Saharan Africa including Ethiopia. Only 14% of births had information on birth weight were available at the time of birth in Ethiopia. So previous studies underestimate the magnitude and associated factors of low birth weight. As a result, the goal of this study is to fill those gaps in the previous studies by assessing the magnitude and associated factors of low birth weight in Addis Ababa.Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was employed. Systematic sampling was used to select 351 study participants. A pre-tested and structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The data were entered, cleaned, and edited using Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 software packages for analysis. Both bivariate and multiple logistic regression were used to identify associated factors. A p-value of <0.05 was declared as a statistically significant association.Results: The magnitude of low birth weight in this study was 13.06%. History of chronic medical illness [AOR=3; CI :.( 1.02, 9.17)], haemoglobin level during pregnancy [AOR=0.23; CI :( 0.10, 0.50)], iron/folic acid supplementation [AOR=0.27; CI :( 0.10, 0.72)], and extra meal during pregnancy [AOR=3.2; CI :( 1.52, 7.00)] were significantly associated with low birth weight.Conclusions: The prevalence of low birth weight in this study was comparable to the EDHS report from 2016. Significant factors of low birth weight were found to be a history of chronic medical illness, hemoglobin level, iron/folic acid supplementation, and extra meal during pregnancy. It is important to encourage women to take iron with folic acid and extra meals during pregnancy in order to reduce the risk of low birth weight.