The relationship between the serum zinc levels of pregnant mothers and their infant's birth weight in Imam Khomeini hospital of Ahvaz in 2010

There are several indicators to determine the health status in a society. One of these indicators is birth weight، and it is associated not only with nutrition quality، health and prenatal care، it also associated with the child''s normal growth and development.

This research was an analytical and cross–sectional research which was performed on women referred to Imam Khomeini Hospital for delivery using accessible sampling method. 120 women with uncomplicated pregnancies and 42-37 weeks of gestation were included in this study. These women had all charactristics of under research units. The information was collected using questionnaire and information checklist، serum zinc level measurement machine، centrifug machine، weighting machine and centimeter. The collected data were analyzed by using an independent T-test and chi-square along with the spss17 statistical software.

Two groups of mothers were equal in demographic and midwifery characteristics. The mean of serum zinc level in all under research mothers was 76/57 mg/dl. Mean birth weight in group of mothers with natural serum level of zinc was (70-120) 37/76±3229 grams and mean birth weight in group of mothers with unnatural serum zinc level was (<70) 30/82± 3092/17 grams (P = 0/007).

Regarding the results of this study، it seems that infant''s birth weight can be directly associated with maternal serum zinc level (P = 0/007).