Customized Fetal Body Mass Index as a Better Predictive Marker for Neonatal Nutritional Status

Abstract

Background/Objectives: The diagnosis of fetal nutritional status is of great im-12 portance for the accurate evaluation and monitoring of these pregnancies. The objective 13 of the present study is to develop a model that allows for the prenatal assessment of fetal 14 body mass index and to evaluate its diagnostic efficacy in predicting neonatal nutritional 15 status. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted to develop and evaluate a 16 new model in the diagnosis of alterations in fetal nutritional status based on the custom-17 ized fetal body mass index. By establishing the relationship between weight and length, 18 we can calculate the fetal body mass index, which could correlate more effectively with 19 nutritional status. Results: A total of 12,633 subjects were recruited, and 9,499 were in-20 cluded in our study. Capacities to predict both neonatal malnourishment and overnutri-21 tion were calculated for each of the three methods analyzed (BMI, GROW, and IG21st). 22 The receiver operating characteristic curve for each method was developed. The sensitiv-23 ity and specificity for the assessment of malnutrition were 0.83 and 0.90, respectively. The 24 area under the ROC curve of our method was 0.95 for malnutrition, while for IG21st and 25 GROW, it was 0.80 and 0.79, respectively. Conclusions: This study demonstrates a supe-26 rior diagnostic capacity for alterations in fetal and neonatal nutritional status of this new 27 fetal BMI curve compared to the previously used fetal weight percentile curves.