Development and validation of an artificial neural network prediction model for postpartum hemorrhage with placenta...

Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is a leading cause of maternal morbidity worldwide and placenta previa is one of the major risk factors for PPH in overall population. However, the clinical prediction of PPH remains challenging. This study aimed to investigate an ideal machine learning-based prediction model for PPH in placenta previa parturients with cesarean section.

The clinical data of 223 placenta previa parturients who underwent cesarean delivery in our hospital from 2016 to 2019 were retrospectively collected for analysis. An artificial neural network model was designed to predict PPH, defined as blood loss exceeding 1000 mL with 24h after delivery. Twenty clinical variables were selected as predictors. We also applied six conventional machine learning methods as reference models, including support vector machine, decision tree, random forest, gradient boosting decision tree, adaboost and logistic regression. All the models were validated using 5-fold cross-validation. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), precision, recall and the prediction accuracy of each model were reported.

A total of 223 pregnant women were enrolled in this study, including 101 cases (45.29%) experienced PPH. The proposed model achieved superior prediction performance with an AUC of 0.917, an accuracy of 0.851, a precision score of 0.829 and a recall score of 0.851, which outperformed other six conventional machine learning methods.

Compared to the conventional machine learning approaches, artificial neural network model shows discriminative ability in identifying women's risk of PPH with placenta previa during cesarean section.