Background: Different primary studies in Ethiopia showed the burden of low birth weight. However, variation\namong those studies was seen. This study was aimed to estimate the national prevalence and associated factors of\nlow birth weight in Ethiopia.\nMethods: PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane library, and Google Scholar were searched. A funnel plot and Eggerâ??s\nregression test were used to see publication bias. I-squared statistic was applied to check heterogeneity of studies.\nA weighted inverse variance random-effects model was applied to estimate the national prevalence and the effect\nsize of associated factors. The subgroup analysis was conducted by region, study design, and year of publication.\nResult: A total of 30 studies with 55,085 participants were used for prevalence estimation. The pooled prevalence\nof LBW was 17.3% (95% CI: 14.1â??20.4). Maternal age < 20 years (AOR = 1.7; 95% CI:1.5â??2.0), pregnancy interval < 24\nmonths (AOR = 2.8; 95%CI: 1.4â??4.2), BMI < 18.5 kg/m2 (AOR = 5.6; 95% CI: 1.7â??9.4), and gestational age < 37 weeks at\nbirth (AOR = 6.4; 95% CI: 2.5â??10.3) were identified factors of LBW.\nConclusions: The prevalence of low birth weight in Ethiopia remains high. This review may help policy-makers and\nprogram officers to design low birth weight preventive interventions.
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