Abstract

It has been established that there is a high incidence of small-for-gestational-age babies among underprivileged urban Africans. This community suffers from endemic malnutrition. Serum albumin studies on mothers of low birthweight babies showed a direct correlation with size of babies for gestational age. Thus maternal protein depletion, and probably therefore malnutrition, was associated with the high incidence of small-for-age-gestational babies.