Placental weight and its relationship with the birth weight of term infants and body mass index of the mothers.

Objective: Placental pathology is a well-known cause of perinatal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, and may correlate with placental growth, which can be assessed indirectly by anthropometric placental measurements. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate mean placental weight and its relationship with birthweight and maternal body mass index (BMI).

Methods: Fresh (not formalin fixed) consecutively delivered placentae of term newborns (37-42 weeks), collected between February 2022 and August 2022, and the mothers and newborns, were included. Mean placental weight, birthweight and maternal BMI were calculated. Pearson's correlation coefficient, linear regression, and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyse continuous and categorical data.

Results: Out of 390 samples, 211 placentae (with 211 newborns and mothers) were included in this study after exclusion criteria were applied. Mean placental weight was 494.45 ± 110.39 g, and mean term birth weight/placental weight ratio was 6.21 ± 1.21 (range, 3.35-11.62 g). Placental weight was positively correlated with birthweight and maternal BMI, but not with newborn sex. Linear regression effect estimation of placental weight on birthweight revealed a medium correlation ( = 0.212; formula, 1.4553 × X + 2246.7, where X is placental weight [g]).

Conclusion: Placental weight was revealed to positively correlate with birthweight and maternal BMI.