Predicting neonatal outcomes: birthweight, body mass index or ponderal index?
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Hala Tamim
Abstract
Aims: To compare birthweight (BW), body mass index (BMI) and ponderal index (PI) as predictors of selected short-term (ST) outcomes, namely Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) admission and prolonged hospitalization (PH), among newborn (NB) infants.
Methods: Data was collected prospectively on 9,226 infants born during one year at nine tertiary care hospitals in Greater Beirut, Lebanon. The predictive abilities of BW, BMI and PI were compared using the area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves and sensitivity analysis was performed at the optimal cut-off points for the best anthropometric measurement.
Results: The area under the ROC curve suggested superior discriminative power for BW as compared to BMI or PI, as a predictor of NICU admission (ROC area = 0.73) and PH (ROC area = 0.74). The optimal BW cut-off point was 2750 g (sensitivity: 0.49; specificity: 0.89) and 2950 g (sensitivity: 0.62; specificity: 0.78) for NICU admission and PH, respectively.
Conclusion: In our population of NB infants, BW – a crude measure of fetal growth – is a better predictor than either BMI – a measure of adiposity in adults and children – or PI – a measure of thinness at birth – for selected ST outcomes in NB infants.
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© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Author Index
- Subject Index
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- Prolonged fetal bradycardia as the presenting clinical sign in Streptococcus agalactiae chorioamnionitis
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- The baby and the bathwater – a comment
- Reply to the opinion paper “The baby or the bathwater: which one should be discarded?”
Articles in the same Issue
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Contents
- Difficult delivery of the impacted fetal head during cesarean section: intraoperative disengagement dystocia
- Breech presenting twin A: is vaginal delivery safe?
- Maternal serum interleukin-1β, -6 and -8 levels and potential determinants in pregnancy and peripartum
- Comparison between HELLP syndrome, chronic hypertension, and superimposed preeclampsia on chronic hypertension without HELLP syndrome
- Fetal scalp pH and ST analysis of the fetal ECG as an adjunct to CTG. A multi-center, observational study
- Effects of nitric oxide and prostacyclin on hemodynamic response by big endothelin-1 in near term fetal sheep
- Strategy for management of newborns with cervical teratoma
- Predicting neonatal outcomes: birthweight, body mass index or ponderal index?
- Markers of platelets activation, CD 62P and soluble P-selectin in healthy term neonates
- Detection of parvovirus B19, cytomegalovirus and enterovirus infections in cases of intrauterine fetal death
- Plasma endothelin-1 and clinical manifestations of neonatal sepsis
- Noncompaction of the left ventricular myocardium diagnosed in pregnant woman and neonate
- Ventricular bigeminy misdiagnosed as fetal bradycardia by cardiotocography – the value of non-invasive fetal electrocardiography
- Prolonged fetal bradycardia as the presenting clinical sign in Streptococcus agalactiae chorioamnionitis
- Changes of blood pressure and heart rate variability precede a grand mal seizure in a pregnant woman
- Myocardial infarction in early pregnancy
- The baby and the bathwater – a comment
- Reply to the opinion paper “The baby or the bathwater: which one should be discarded?”