Born in poverty to lifetime of ill health

A GROWING number of babies in the Capital’s most deprived areas are being condemned to a lifetime of ill health due to being born underweight.

In areas such as Craigmillar and Pilton, low birth-weight rates are almost double that of the Edinburgh average, increasing in recent years.

The lighter a baby is at birth, the more risk the child has of developing mental and physical disabilities and the less likely it is to survive.

Health chiefs are concerned about the rise, revealed in the 2003 Public Health Report for the Lothians, and will monitor it to see if the increase continues.

In Edinburgh as a whole, 5.7 per cent of babies were born underweight, weighing less than 2500g (5.5lb).

Eleven per cent of babies in Craigmillar were born underweight, compared with 8.1 per cent two years ago. The figures have also risen in North Edinburgh, South Edinburgh and West Edinburgh.

In Wester Hailes, the number of low birth-weight babies has fallen, although it is still above the Lothian average.

A baby is more likely to be born underweight if its mother smokes or has a bad diet during pregnancy.

Professor Peter Donnelly, director of public health at NHS Lothian, said: "In poorer areas there are higher levels of low birth-weight babies and this is something that we are tackling very aggressively because we want to try to make sure that we break into this cycle of poverty.

"We want to put right this generation of health inequalities. We do not want these children to experience inequalities in health because of what happened to them as kids."

The number of teenage pregnancies in deprived areas is also linked to a high level of low birth-weight babies.

Babies born to young mums are more likely to be born small because their mothers are physically underdeveloped.

But Prof Donnelly said the increases were "not statistically significant" as such a small number of low birth-weight babies were born every year in the Lothians.

He said: "These differences [in the number of underweight babies born] are not yet big enough for us to be certain that they are not simply down to chance. There is going to be a bit of fluctuation year on year. What we will have to do is watch them very closely, hoping that the action we are taking will help in terms of making sure these things do not become statistically significant."

He said a number of projects were going on across the Lothians to try to drive down the number of underweight babies.

More midwives are going into expectant mothers’ homes to educate them about healthy living. Projects targeted at pregnant women and their partners have also been set up in areas such as Craigmillar and Moredun.

In addition, the Healthy Respect programme aims to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies, which in turn may see the incidence of low birth-weight babies fall.

City council leader Donald Anderson said: "People in poor areas are disadvantaged in so many ways and we have come a long way in Edinburgh in terms of tackling poverty and deprivation and we need to tackle problems like this one until we close the gap."

Peter Kelly, acting director of the Poverty Alliance, said: "There is definitely a direct link between low birth weight and poverty.

"One of the problems with poverty in Scotland is that it is hidden, it’s not the stark, grim picture of absolute poverty you see on television, but it certainly does exist and it has a real impact on people.

"It has an impact on their pregnancy, their educational achievement and the opportunities they have throughout their lives.

"It [the statistics] clearly shows that not enough is being done to tackle poverty. The problems surrounding low birth weight cannot be tackled by traditional policies."