Identificacion de embarazos de alto riesgo de bajo peso al nacer en zonas urbanas de América Latina: Organización, poblacion y métodologia del estudio perinatal de Guatemala

A prospective epidemiologic survey of pregnant women carried out in Guatemala City in 1984-1986 sought to develop a method for identifying mothers at high risk of delivering low birth weight infants as early in gestation as possible. Although the basic data come from a single hospital, the Gynecology and Obstetrics Hospital of the Guatemalan Institute of Social Security (IGSS), they are representative of a major segment of the urban population of this city. All pregnant women (17 135) attending the prenatal clinic at the IGSS Hospital between 1 April 1984 and 10 January 1986 were included in the study. Women who delivered at the IGSS Hospital but were not enrolled in the study included those who had not received any prenatal care and others that had received prenatal care outside the IGSS system or at the IGSS peripheral clinics. This article provides detailed information about the study population, data collection system, standardized collection procedures, and data quality control processes. The authors recommend using standardized procedures for the collection of data in all perinatal epidemiological studies and analysing the reliability of the data by methods such as those described in this report. They also suggest reducing the amount of information routinely collected, periodically incorporating pertinent variables, and organizing local or hospital-based systems for data analysis