The decline in the infant mortality rate in India
from 110/1000 livebirths in 1981 to 73/1000
live births in 1993 has been achieved mainly by
immunisation and diarrhoea control strategies.'
Though these have reduced postneonatal mortality, neonatal mortality has not fallen correspondingly. To reduce neonatal mortality,
identification and timely referral to care of low
birthweight infants is important. However, in
developing countries most babies are delivered
at home by illiterate, traditional birth attendants and weighing at birth may not be
possible. In these circumstances surrogate
measures for birth weight need to be identified.
Such a measure should be simple to use (even
for illiterate people), valid (it should identify
low birthweight babies correctly), and must be