Impact of Being Born as a Small for Gestational
Age on Neonatal Outcomes - Can it be Generalised
1
MedDocs Publishers
*Corresponding Author(s): Supreet Khurana
DM Neonatology, Assistant Professor, Department of
Neonatology, Government medical college and hospital,
Chandigarh, India.
Tel: +91-7087612359;
Email: supreetkhurana85@gmail.com
Cite this artcle: Jain S, Chawla D, Khurana S. Impact of Being Born as a Small for Gestatonal Age on Neonatal Out-
comes - Can it be Generalised. Ann Pediatr. 2021; 4(1): 1071.
Annals of Pediatrics
Open Access | Short Commentary
ISSN: 2637-9627
Received: May 18, 2021
Accepted: Jun 16, 2021
Published Online: Jun 18, 2021
Journal: Annals of Pediatrics
Publisher: MedDocs Publishers LLC
Online editon: htp://meddocsonline.org/
Copyright: © Khurana S (2021). This Artcle is
distributed under the terms of Creatve Commons
Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License
Suksham Jain; Deepak Chawla; Supreet Khurana*
Department of Neonatology, Government medical college and hospital, Chandigarh, India.
Abstract
Small for Gestatonal Age (SGA) is a term used as a proxy
for poor intrauterine fetal growth and is associated with
higher perinatal mortality and morbidity. A retrospectve
cohort study was carried out analysing outcomes amongst
SGA neonates born over 2 years in a tertary-care referral
teaching hospital. Out of 21086 neonates born during the
study period, 3229 (15.3%) were Small for Gestatonal Age
(SGA); defned as birth weight between 3
rd
-10
th
centle and
2289 (10.9%) had severe SGA; with birth weight below 3
rd
centle as per Fenton’s intrauterine growth charts. The need
for hospitalisaton beyond inital 72 hours was needed in
31.1% (1005/3229) of SGA and 42.5% (973/2289) of severe
SGA. It was observed that the Odds of developing morbidi-
tes such as symptomatc hypoglycaemia, meconium aspi-
raton syndrome, pulmonary haemorrhage, transient feed
intolerance, polycythaemia and death before hospital dis-
charge were at least twice more likely in SGA neonates. Ne-
onates who were severe SGA had odds of mortality further
two tmes higher than the moderate SGA group. In additon,
severe SGA were also noted to be at a higher risk of early
and late onset neonatal sepsis, acute kidney injury, hypoxic
ischemic encephalopathy, seizures, patent ductus arterio-
sus and necrotzing enterocolits. This study emphasises the
need to identfy separately the neonates born as severe
SGA. This distnct high - risk group from amongst the vulner-
able set of SGA populaton needs more cautous monitoring
and intensive management for improving chances of their
overall intact survival.
Keywords: Neonates; Small for gestatonal age; Morbidites.