Low birthweight is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as weight at birth of less than 2 500 g (5.5 lb) and is caused by intrauterine growth restriction, prematurity or both. Low birthweight continues to be a significant public health problem globally and is associated with a range of both short and long-term consequences such as fetal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, impaired growth and cognitive development, and an increased risk of NCDs later in life. Low birthweight infants are approximately 20 times more likely to die than infants with a weight over 2 500 g (WHO, 2014; WHO, 2022).
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the prevalence of low birthweight was 8.7 percent in 2015. This has not varied much since 2000. Although the region has made little progress toward the WHO target of reducing low birthweight by 30 percent, it is worth noting that the region’s average is well below the world average (14.6 percent). Among subregions, the Caribbean shows the highest prevalence of low birthweight (9.9 percent), followed by Mesoamerica (8.7 percent) then South America (8.6 percent).
The countries with the highest prevalence of low birthweight in the region, according to the latest available data (2015), were Guyana (15.6 percent), Suriname (14.7 percent), Jamaica (14.6 percent), Bahamas (13.1 percent), and Trinidad and Tobago (12.4 percent), while Chile and Cuba had rates below 7 percent. Between 2000 and 2015, the prevalence of low birthweight increased by 6 percent in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 7 percent in Costa Rica, 8 percent in Brazil, and 19 percent in Chile. In contrast, the prevalence of low birthweight decreased in the Plurinational State of Bolivia (-10 percent) and Cuba (-13 percent) (Figure 18).
