Maternal factors associated with high birth weight.

Area of Science:

• Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Perinatal Medicine
• Maternal-Fetal Medicine

Background:

• High birth weight (macrosomia) is associated with increased risks for both mother and infant.
• Accurate prediction of high birth weight is crucial for appropriate prenatal care and delivery management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify maternal characteristics associated with high birth weight (>= 4500g) in singleton term infants.
• To evaluate the predictive performance of a prognostic model incorporating symphysis-fundus height measurement.

Main Methods:

• A case-control study involving 473 mothers of infants with high birth weight and control mothers with normal birth weight.
• Multivariate analysis was used to assess the significance of various maternal factors.
• A prognostic model was developed and its sensitivity and specificity evaluated with and without symphysis-fundus height measurement.

Main Results:

• Maximum symphysis-fundus height and gestational duration were highly significant predictors (p < 0.001) of high birth weight.
• Maternal height, pre-pregnancy weight, gestational weight gain, and history of a previous high birth weight infant were also significant (p < 0.05).
• Including symphysis-fundus height measurement in the prognostic model improved sensitivity from 80.3% to 83.3% and specificity from 78.8% to 85.6%.

Conclusions:

• Maternal characteristics, particularly symphysis-fundus height and gestational duration, are strong predictors of high birth weight.
• Symphysis-fundus height measurement enhances the accuracy of predictive models for identifying infants at risk of macrosomia.
• These findings can aid in optimizing prenatal care and delivery planning for high-risk pregnancies.