Low birthweight is defined by the WHO as weight at birth lower than 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) and can be caused by intrauterine growth restriction, prematurity or both. Low birthweight constitutes 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, as well as an increased risk of non-communicable diseases later in life (WHO, 2014c).
Latin America and the Caribbean has a lower prevalence of low birthweight than the world estimate. In 2020, this prevalence was 9.6 percent compared to the world estimate of 14.7 percent. As shown in FIGURE 22, this has not varied considerably since 2000. The prevalence at a global level was reduced by 1.9 percentage points in the period 2000–2020, while at the regional level it increased slightly by 0.3 percentage point. When analysed by subregion, the Caribbean showed a prevalence of low birthweight of 11.7 percent, followed by Mesoamerica (10.9 percent), and finally South America (8.8 percent), meaning that all three subregions are below the world estimate.
| 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| World | 16.6 | 16.1 | 15.3 | 14.8 | 14.6 | 14.7 |
| Latin America and the Caribbean | 9.3 | 9.4 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 9.6 | 9.6 |
| Caribbean | 10.8 | 11.1 | 11.3 | 11.5 | 11.7 | 11.7 |
| Mesoamerica | 10.6 | 10.7 | 10.8 | 10.9 | 10.9 | 10.9 |
| South America | 8.5 | 8.6 | 8.6 | 8.7 | 8.8 | 8.8 |
FIGURE 2315 shows the latest data available for the prevalence of low birthweight in countries of the region. The countries with the highest prevalence in 2020 were Guyana (17.2 percent), Suriname (16.5 percent), Saint Lucia (16.3 percent) and Trinidad and Tobago (16.3 percent). At the other end of the spectrum, Chile (6.8 percent), Cuba (7.1 percent) and Argentina (7.4 percent) registered the lowest rates in the region. Considering the period 2000–2020, Peru shows the greatest improvement in this indicator, with a reduction of 2.7 percentage points, followed by Nicaragua (1.3 points) and Panama and Jamaica with a decrease of 1.2 percentage points each. By contrast, the countries that show the largest increase for the same period are the Dominican Republic (3.2 percentage points), Suriname (2.3 percentage points) and Saint Lucia (1.9 percentage points). 15 See Table 28 in Annex I.
The prevalence of low birthweight was higher in 2020 compared to 2000 in the majority of countries in the region. Only eight countries showed an improvement in this period: the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.
