Click here for MMWR home page. Contamination of the parsley likely occurred on the farm when unchlorinated water was recirculated and used for cooling many boxes of parsley. At the restaurants, parsley was chopped and left at room temperature, allowing rapid growth of the bacteria. The increase in low birth weight babies in Massachusetts is due, in part, to the dramatic increase in multiple births. This trend has important implications not only for the well-being of infants and their mothers, but for public health policy.
Infants born in multiple births are smaller than infants born as singletons.