Household air pollution from the use of biomass fuels has been associated with low birth weight in many developing countries. We investigated the effect of indoor air pollution from biomass fuel use and kitchen location on maternal reports of birth size in newborn children in Ethiopia using secondary cross-sectional data from Ethiopian Demographic Health Survey conducted in 2016. Birth weight from child health card and/or mothers recall was the dependent dichotomous variable. Fuel type was classified as high pollution fuels, and low pollution fuels. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to assess the effect of fuel type on birth weight. The prevalence of low birth weight was 25.9% and the use of biomass fuels was significantly associated with higher odds of having low birth weight baby in the bivariate analysis, after controlling for child and maternal factors. In the final model, the association turned insignificant with AOR, 1.3 (95% 0.9, 1.9). The kitchen location, Gender of the baby, Mothers Anemia Status, Maternal Chat chewing, and wealth Index were significant factors in the final model. The use of biomass fuels and kitchen location were associated with reduced child size at birth. Further observational studies should investigate this association using more direct methods.
Keywords: Biomass fuel, Demographic and Health Survey, Kitchen location, Low Birth Weight, Maternal report of birth size, Ethiopia
Effect of biomass fuel use and kitchen location on maternal report of birth size: cross-sectional analysis of 2016 Ethiopian Demographic Health Survey data
