Size at Birth by Gestational Age

This section has curves made from a study of ~11,800 neontal Botswanan boys and girls who were born between 2007 and 2010 (1). The infants were born in six hospitals and clinics in Botswana, and all of their mothers were HIV negative. The study mixed data from boys and girls. Although mixing data for the sexes isn't optimal, we've included the curve here because there is so little data from sub-Saharan Africa. We've also created a curve using 50th percentile values from African American infants (that study also pooled data for both sexes; 2).

1. 1. Matthews L et al. (2011) Birth weight for gestational age norms for a large cohort of infants born to HIV-negative women in Botswana compared with norms for U.S.-born black infants. BMC Pediatrics   11:115.  doi: 10.1186/1471-2431-11-115. Full text on PubMed.
2. 2. Oken E et al. (2003) A nearly continuous measure of birth weight for gestational age using a United States national reference. BMC Pediatrics  3:6.   doi: 10.1186/1471-2431-3-6. Full text on PubMed.