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M de Onis¹, M Blössner¹ and J Villar²

Correspondence: Dr Mercedes de Onis

¹Nutrition Unit, World Health Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland;²Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction, World Health Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland

The aim of this paper is to quantify the magnitude and describe the geographical distribution of intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) in developing countries. We estimate that at least 13.7 million infants are born every year at term with low birth weight (LBW), representing 11% of all newborns in developing countries. This rate is approximately 6 times higher than in developed countries. LBW, defined as < 2500 g, affects 16.4% of all newborns, or about 20.5 million infants each year. IUGR, defined as birth weight below the 10th percentile of the birth-weight-for-gestational-age reference curve, represents 23.8%, or approximately 30 million newborns per year. Overall, nearly 75% of all affected newborns are born in Asia - mainly in South-central Asia - 20% in Africa, and about 5% in Latin America. Although some of these are healthy, small infants who merely represent the lower tail of a fetal growth distribution, in most developing countries a large proportion of newborns suffer from some degree of intrauterine growth retardation. These data demonstrate that many developing countries currently exceed the internationally recommended IUGR (> 20%) and LBW (> 15%) cut-off levels for triggering public health action, and that population-wide interventions aimed at preventing fetal growth retardation are urgently required.