A predictive model of macrosomic birth based upon real-world clinical data from pregnant women

Abstract

Background: Fetal macrosomia is associated with an increased risk of several maternal and newborn complications. Antenatal predication of fetal macrosomia remains challenging. We aimed to develop a nomogram model for the prediction of macrosomia using real-world clinical data to improve the sensitivity and specificity of macrosomia prediction.

Methods: In the present study, we performed a retrospective, observational study based on 13,403 medical records of pregnant women who delivered singleton infants at a tertiary hospital in Shanghai from 1 January 2018 through 31 December 2019. We split the original dataset into a training set (n = 9382) and a validation set (n = 4021) at a 7:3 ratio to generate and validate our model. The candidate variables, including maternal characteristics, laboratory tests, and sonographic parameters were compared between the two groups. A univariate and multivariate logistic regression was carried out to explore the independent risk factors for macrosomia in pregnant women. Thus, the regression model was adopted to establish a nomogram to predict the risk of macrosomia. Nomogram performance was determined by discrimination and calibration metrics. All the statistical analysis was analyzed using R software.

Results: We compared the differences between the macrosomic and non-macrosomic groups within the training set and found 16 independent risk factors for macrosomia (P < 0.05), including biparietal diameter (BPD), head circumference (HC), femur length (FL), amniotic fluid index (AFI) at the last prenatal examination, pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), and triglycerides (TG). Values for the areas under the curve (AUC) for the nomogram model were 0.917 (95% CI, 0.908-0.927) and 0.910 (95% CI, 0.894-0.927) in the training set and validation set, respectively. The internal and external validation of the nomogram demonstrated favorable calibration as well as discriminatory capability of the model.

Conclusions: Our model has precise discrimination and calibration capabilities, which can help clinical healthcare staff accurately predict macrosomia in pregnant women.

Keywords: Clinical data; Macrosomia; Nomogram; Prediction model.