Abstract

Background: Birth weight and gestational age are important determinants of an infant’s survival and future development. The main objective of this research was to identify the determinants of birth weight and gestational age simultaneously based on Ethiopia's demographic health survey in 2016 which implemented in statistical package R.

Methods: Cross-sectional study design was used from Ethiopia's demographic health survey in 2016. The bivariate linear regression model was used to identify factors of birth weight and gestational age simultaneously which had small standard errors as compared to a separate model.

Results: Bi-variate models of birth weight and gestational age determined the effect of predictors. Therefore, the model shows that the number of tetanus injections before pregnancy, educational level of husband, desire for more children, drink alcohol, and region are statistically significant at 5% level of significance for gestational age in Ethiopia. Similarly, the size of a child, preferred waiting time for birth, the number of tetanus injections before pregnancy was statistically associated with birth weight at 5% level of significance.

Conclusion: From our finding, we concluded that the number of tetanus injections before pregnancy, educational level of husband, desire for more children, drink alcohol, size of child, preferred waiting time for birth and region were significant predictors of birth weight and gestational age simultaneously at 5% level of significance. Hence, special care should be given to the pregnant during antenatal care for minimizing the risk of low birth weight and small gestational age.

Keywords: Birth weight; Gestational age; Bi-variate Model; Ethiopia and demographic health survey