Low birth weight is one of the critical issues in Ethiopia that causes
many babies short- term and long-term health consequences and tend to have
higher mortality and morbidity. This study was aimed to examine and identify
the determinants of low birth weight among children aged 0 to 59 months in
Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) data was
used. The analysis is based on the 7358 of those women who had complete
information. Multiple logistic regression and multilevel logistic techniques
were used for data analysis. The results show that educational status of
mothers, mother’s age at first birth, wealth index, sex of child, type of birth,
anemia status of mothers, maternal nutrition status, and number of antenatal
care during pregnancy were important determinants of baby’s size at birth in
Ethiopia. Children born from low income, not educated, anemic, no or less
antenatal visit, low BMI and teenage mothers have higher risk of having small
birth size. Female infants and multiple birth infants were disproportionately
associated with small size at birth. The random intercept model revealed that
there was a significant variation in baby’s size at birth across regions. The
Random coefficient model used to investigate whether individual level
covariates vary across regions showed that baby’s size at birth varies across
regions, and regional level random effects of wealth index factor, number of
antenatal care visit during pregnancy and maternal nutritional status of
mothers were found to be significant in explaining variations for baby’s size at
birth across the regions of Ethiopia.