Periodontal disease as a risk factor for low birth weight

Abstract

Introduction: Low birth weight is a health problem worldwide, there is controversy about the association of periodontal disease with different adverse perinatal outcomes.
Objective: To determine if periodontal disease is a risk factor for low birth weight.
Methods: An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in pregnant women who provided live newborns with low weight belonging to the municipality of Pinar del Río, during 2019. The universe (94) pregnant women and the sample (72) through a non-probabilistic sample at the discretion of the authors, according to inclusion criteria. The variables were: maternal age, gestational age at birth, risk factors (hypertension, bronchial asthma, anemia, vaginal sepsis, urinary sepsis, smoking), weight gain during pregnancy (adequate, insufficient, excessive), evaluation nutritional status (normal weight, overweight, malnourished, obese) and presence of periodontal disease (gingivitis and periodontitis). The sources used were the medical records of the mothers and newborns and the statistics were descriptive with distribution of absolute and relative frequencies.
Results: Maternal ages between 20 to 25 (33,3 %) and gestational age between 33 and 36 weeks (47,2 %) predominated, vaginal sepsis was the main disease associated with pregnancy (22,2 %), predominated inadequate weight gain (41,7 %) and normal weight with (59,7 %).
Conclusions: Periodontal disease was not associated as a risk factor for adverse perinatal outcomes such as low birth weight.

DeCS: PERIODONTAL DISEASES; RISK FACTOR'S; LOW WEIGHT NEWBORN; GESTATIONAL AGE; BIRTH WEIGHT.