Large babies need additional monitoring too

New research has suggested that both small and large for gestational age babies should be monitored, in order to reduce stillbirth.  The study monitored the pregnancies across five different areas in the US, resulting in 527 singleton stillbirths and 1821 singleton live births.

When assessing the trends for growth, they found that stillbirth was associated with babies classified as both small for gestational age (lower than the 10th percentile) and large for gestational age (higher than 90th percentile). The association was considered stronger for those with weights lower than the 5th percentile, and higher than the 95th percentile.

As a result, the researchers recommend that stillbirth prevention strategies should be put into place for cases of both growth restriction and excessive growth. Whilst they acknowledge that the study’s accuracy may be affected by some elements of the design – they suggest that also monitoring babies with excessive growth could identify almost half of at risk pregnancies.

Read the full study here.

And to read about our “Made to Measure” campaign see here