Abstract The assessment of nutrition at birth has been made using various systems. A simple, practical, clinically applicable scoring system CAN Score (Clinical Assessment of Nutritional Score) was developed by Metcoff. It was developed to differentiate malnutrition from appropriately nourished babies, irrespective of birth weight. It is based on nine ‘superficial’ readily detectable signs of malnutrition in the newborn baby. Anthropometric parameters like length, weight, and head circumference have also been used to assess the occurrence of fetal malnutrition. In the present study with sample of 60 neonates, a simple brief clinical assessment of Nutritional Status (CAN SCORE) revealed 7 neonates were fetally malnourished. Most of the new born of weight <2.5kg were fetally malnourished. In this study CAN SCORE detected 11.6 % of the full term neonates as fetally malnourished CAN Score is a simple technique. It does not require the use of any sophisticated equipments for assessment of foetal malnutrition. It is easy to carry out as the score contains the examination for nine clinical signs viz. hair, cheeks, neck, arms, chest, skin of abdominal wall (or abdomen), back, buttocks and legs. The score assess nutritional status of the foetus at birth. Features of fetal malnutrition are sought for in each baby using nine ‘superficial’ readily detectable signs. The advantage of CAN SCORE is that it is a simple, clinical index for identifying fetal malnutrition and thus it may have the potential to predict neonatal morbidity associated with fetal malnutrition without the aid of any sophisticated equipments.