Relative impact of pre-eclampsia on birth weight in a low resource setting: A prospective cohort study

Low birth-weight is a major risk factor for perinatal death in sub-Saharan Africa, but the relative contribution of determinants of birth-weight are difficult to disentangle in low resource settings. We sought to delineate the relationship between birth-weight and maternal pre-eclampsia across gestation in a low-resource obstetric setting.

Prospective cohort study in a tertiary referral centre in urban Uganda, including 971 pre-eclampsia cases and 1461 control pregnancies between 28 and 42 weeks gestation.

Nonlinear modeling of birth-weight versus maternal pre-eclampsia status across gestation. Models were adjusted for maternal-fetal characteristics including maternal age, parity, HIV status, and socio-economic status. Propensity score matching was used to control for the severity of pre-eclampsia at different gestational ages.

Mean birth-weight for pre-eclampsia cases was 2.48 kg (±0.81SD) compared to 3.06 kg (±0.46SD) for controls (p < 0.001). At 28 weeks, the mean birth-weight difference between pre-eclampsia cases and controls was 0.58 kg (p < 0.05), narrowing to 0.17 kg at 39 weeks (p < 0.01). Controlling for pre-eclampsia severity only partially explained this gestational difference in mean birth-weight between pre-eclampsia cases and controls. Holding gestational age constant, pre-eclampsia status predicted 7.1-10.5% of total variation in birth-weight, compared to 0.05-0.7% for all other maternal-fetal characteristics combined.

Pre-eclampsia is the dominant predictor of birth-weight in low-resource settings and hence likely to heavily influence perinatal survival. The impact of pre-eclampsia on birth-weight is smaller with advancing gestational age, a difference that is not fully explained by controlling for pre-eclampsia severity.