Determinants of child size at birth and associated maternal factor in Gurage zone: Application of ordinal logistic regression analysis

Abstract Background Birth weight plays an important role in infant mortality and morbidity, child development, and future health of the child. Weight at birth is directly influenced by general level of health status of the mother. As the Gurage zone health office reports birth weight is one of the critical issues in Gugare zone that causes many babies short- term and long-term health consequences and tend to have higher mortality and morbidity. This study examined and identified the determinants of weight of children at birth in Gurage zone based on primary collected survey data by using ordinal logistic regression. Methods :The survey or the information has been collected on a total of 735,109 reproductive mothers in Gurage zone. Children with age less than 59 months have been considered on this study and from 735,109 reproductive mothers 897 were selected. Ordinal logistic regression techniques used for data analysis using maternal and socio- demographic variables as explanatory variables and size of a baby’s at birth as the response variable and statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 23 was used for data analysis purpose. Result:According to our study, from the sampled children, 30.1%, 44.4% and 25.5% are small in size, medium in size and large in size, respectively. Maternal related variable were statistically significant like uneducated mother (β=0.26,p=0.013), mothers who get antenatal visit care 2-3 times (β=-0.210,p=0.10), source of drinking water (β=0.844,p=0.000) and malaria affected mothers (β=0.344,p=0.000) Conclusions: children from Rural mothers, uneducated families, mothers who did not get more antenatal care visits, poor families, mothers who drink non -improved water, mothers who are affected by malaria during pregnancy, teenager mothers are small in size at birth or they are not normal at birth. Mothers’ pregnancy problem and small size of children at birth are directly related.