Healthy newborn size varies with ethnicity: study

For newborn babies, taking ethnicity into consideration may help determine how small is too small, according to Canadian researchers.

They found that birth-weight standards based on population averages did not predict which babies born at or near full term were likely to suffer problems associated with being small for their gestational ages.

"The results are not necessarily surprising, but there has been controversy regarding whether customizing growth distributions is necessary," said lead author Gillian Hanley of the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Click here to read more.