Objectives: Roma infants tend to be smaller and are diagnosed as SGA more often than non-Roma infants, suggesting that specific anthropometric norms for these infants may be useful. We aimed to construct population-based centile, gender-specific charts for birth weight and length for singleton Roma infants born from 35 to 42 weeks of gestation and to compare it with anthropometric data of non-Roma infants.
Methods: We analyzed data on 27,602 non-Roma (53 % males) and 2235 Roma (51 % males) singleton live infants delivered from 2006 to 2012 in South East Serbia. The LMS method was used to estimate the birth weight and length centiles.
Results: Roma infants were up to 12 % lighter and up to 4 % shorter than non-Roma infants. Estimated centile charts for Roma males and females were constructed showing the 3rd, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th and 97th centiles.
Conclusions: We created the separate centile charts for Roma ethnic group. The sample size was sufficient to demonstrate differences in mean birth weights and lengths of at term infants born during the study period.
Keywords: Birth length; Birth weight; Roma.