Association Between Maternal Haematological Profiles, Birth Weight and Apgar Score: A Five-Year Retrospective Study at a Medical Center in Ghana

Background: While pregnancy can be a joyous occasion for women and their families, it can also bring about stress and worry. Globally, the prevalence of adverse birth outcomes has been on the ascendency making it a great public health concern, especially in Africa. Very little is known in the study jurisdiction on the influence of haematological profile on Apgar score and birth weight. The study aimed at determining the association between maternal haematological profiles and birth outcomes.

Methods: This study was a hospital-based cross-sectional retrospective design which retrieved 294 records of pregnant women from November 2018 to December 2022 from the medical records at the Nyaho Medical Center. All data on the Complete Blood Count, Apgar score and birth weight was collected and exported to IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 28.0 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corporation) after cleaning with MS Excel for statistical analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics was undertaken. At a confidence interval of 95% and a 5% margin of error, a p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: The study found mild anaemia to be most prevalent across all trimesters and the neonatal period, with the highest prevalence in the second trimester (46.4%). Anaemia prevalence fluctuated over the five-year period, peaking in 2019 (50.0%) and 2022 (48.3%). Significant variations in haematological parameters were observed across trimesters and the neonatal period. Median haemoglobin and platelet count increased from the first trimester to the neonatal period, while neutrophils and monocytes decreased. Spearman rank correlations revealed weak associations between haematological profiles and birth outcomes. Negative binomial regression analysis showed marginal increases in Apgar scores and birth weights with higher haemoglobin levels, and significant increases in birth weight with higher neutrophil counts, though these findings were not statistically significant.

Conclusion: The study revealed the complex relationship between maternal haematological profiles and neonatal outcomes, emphasizing the limited predictive value of parameters like haemoglobin, WBC, and RBC for birth weight and Apgar scores. While some trends were observed, such as higher haemoglobin levels and neutrophil counts being associated with marginally better outcomes, these findings lacked statistical significance, underscoring the need for further research.

Keywords: Haematological Profile, Apgar Score, Birth Weight, Anaemia