Relationship between mothers age , birth weight and gestation - Essay Example

post natal weight loss.The mothers socio-economic status has been listed as a major factor underlying low birth weights though other factors have been documented. While there is a strong correlation between birth weight and gestation period, the birth weight and age correlation seem to be an interesting as we would like to know at which age are mothers more healthy at giving birth. Age and parity affects the weight of the fetus though there is low correlation between the mother’s age and weight of fetus (Jen, 1969 p.187). It has also been shown that the birth weight average for first born babies in very young couples is low (Mary and Perose n.d. p.150). It is known that the age of the mother will affect the conditions necessary for good fetal birth weights.

Hypothesis; mothers age greater than 35 give low birth weight 50 sets of data containing age of mothers and the birth weight of their corresponding babies were systematically sampled from a sample of 1148 entries at the oxford street hospital. Samples were picked at intervals of 23 to constitute a representative sample. The samples were analyzed using Microsoft excel software. Table 1 is a representative sample of the data collected for the analysis. From figure 1 and figure 2 it can be observed that the sample is normal distribution and therefore statistical methods of analyzing the data can be applied.

From the stem and leaf diagram we can tell that most mothers were in their 20’s whereas only two mothers were below 20years of age. From table 1 we can estimade that the mean, mode and median will likely fall within the 20’s age group. The mean birth weight was 3.46 Kg whereas the mean age for the mothers was 29.16 years. The median for the birth weights of the population was 3.42 Kg and the median age was 28 years. The most common birth weight was 3.32Kg and the common mother’s age 23 years.

25% of the birth weights were below 3.19, whereas half of the birth weights were below3.42 and 75% of the