Relationship between physical traits and rate of some common illnesses in newborn infants

The morbidity rates of newborn infants suffering from jaundice or urinary tract infections (UTI) as well as total morbidity were determined in morphologically different groups of 1088 newborn infants. On the basis of body weight, body length, head circumference and Quetelet's index; the surveyed neonates divided into a modal (MI = mean ± 0·67 SD) and two extreme groups: small (SI MI), for each variable. The results show that, in general, infants with high morbidity, including those suffering from jaundice and UTI, have lower values of all the mentioned morphological traits than do healthy infants. Discriminant analyses of sick and healthy infants (three pairs of comparisons) indicate that decreased weight at birth is typical for all studied categories of morbidity. An additional finding was that infants suffering from UTI or other types of morbidity (total morbidity) originate from small-sized families in which the parents are generally older and the mother tends to be short and overweight.