Use of LPG by pregnant women not linked to weight of newborns: study

A shift to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by pregnant women may not be enough to improve the birthweight of infants, a new study has found. However, it can help reduce air pollution compared to use of conventional biomass cooking fuel such as wood or dung. These women may require several health and nutritional intervention to improve birthweight, scientists said.

Women’s exposure to household air pollution caused by the burning of solid biomass fuel during pregnancy is associated with adverse health outcomes on their newborns, including low birth weight. The multi-national study of more than 3,000 women has concluded that it was unclear that replacement of a biomass cookstove with a LPG cookstove would result in an increase in their birthweight.

Also read: Commercial LPG rate slashed by ₹36 from August 1

The method

A total of 3,200 women underwent randomization as part of the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While 1,594 women were assigned to the intervention group,  1,607 to the control group. The traditional biomass cookstoves were used at a median rate of less than 1 day per month. After randomization, the median 24-hour personal exposure to fine particulate matter was 23.9 μg per cubic meter in the intervention group and 70.7 μg per cubic meter in the control group.

Among 3,060 live births, a valid birth weight was available for 94.9% of the infants born to women in the intervention group and for 92.7% of infants born to those in the control group. The mean birth weight was 2921±474.3 g in the intervention group and 2898±467.9 g in the control group, for an adjusted mean difference of 19.5 g (95% confidence interval, −10.1 to 49.2).

The birth weight of infants did not differ significantly between those born to women who used LPG cookstoves and those born to women who used biomass cookstoves, revealed the study.