European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

PLACENTA MORPHOLOGY AND MORPHOMETERY AS A FACTOR OF INFANT’S BIRTH WEIGHT IN PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA

Emeka-Ogbugo Alerechi* and Emeka Anthony Osunwoke

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The placenta is the connection between the intrauterine foetus and the mother. To a large extent, the physiologic state of the placenta influences foetal development, which in turn could affect the new-borns birth weight. This study, therefore, evaluated the placenta morphological variations and morphometric associations with neonatal birth weight.Materials and methods: This study was a hospital-based retrospective cross-sectional study involving an estimated 250 new-born. The data were obtained directly from parturients and the products of conception (foetus and placenta) assessed immediately after delivery. The number of cotyledons, placenta thickness, weight, and diameter, and the new-born birth weights were determined. Differences in mean, distribution, and correlation of variables were evaluated using SPSS (version 23), Minitab® 18.1 (Minitab, Inc. 2017), and GraphPad Prism (version 8.4.3). The confidence level was set at 95% and a p-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: There was no significant difference in the mean measurements of the different placental shape (P>0.05). All measured placenta variables; number of cotyledons (R2=0.240, p<0.0001; BW = 0.09195*No. cotyl + 1.693), placenta thickness (R2=0.274, p<0.0001; BW = 0.7305*PT + 1.951), weight (R2=0.344; p<0.0001, BW = 1.563*PW + 2.355), and diameter (R2=0.345, p<0.0001; BW = 0.1153*PD + 1.035) were significantly positively correlated with birth weight.Conclusions: Our findings strongly support the hypothesis that morphometric attributes of the placenta are a better determinant of the neonatal birth weight than the morphological characteristics.

Keywords: Correlate, Placenta, Morphometry, Morphology, Birth weight.