Clinical versus ultrasonographic fetal weight estimation and its correlation with actual birth weight

Abstract

Background: This is a prospective study was conducted at Obstetrics and Gynecology department, tertiary care Hospital, to compare the accuracy of clinical and ultrasonographic estimation of fetal weight at term with actual birth weight.Methods: The present study is a prospective comparative study of fetal weight estimation in Antenatal women with term gestation (37week to 42week of gestation) singleton pregnancy with vertex presentation, who had gestational age confirmed by dates and ultrasound scanning of< 22weeks admitted in tertiary care center from March 2016 to November 2016. Patients with Polyhydramnios, oligohydramnios, Antepartum hemorrhage, Congenital anomalies of fetus, Obese (Body mass index >30 kilogram/meter2) are excluded from the study. Estimation of fetal weight is done by clinical method and ultrasonography. Birth weight after delivery was recorded in grams by electronic weighing machine and tabulated.Results: Clinical as well as ultrasonography estimates observed to be strongly correlate with actual birth weight. Both the methods had more sensitivity in birth weight range 2500-4000gm than <2500g and >4000g. The overall mean absolute percentage error of the clinical method (7.2±7.7) was smaller than that of the sonographic method (16.2±11.1). In low birth-weight (<2,500g) group, mean absolute percentage error was 9.0±11.3 with USG and same with clinical was 11.7±9.0. No statistically significant difference was observed.Conclusions: The present study concludes that clinical estimation of birth-weight is as accurate as routine ultrasonographic estimation.Clinical palpation should be considered as diagnostic tool for FWE and is equally reliable even when done by trained medical person. It is cheap and easy to teach. The need is to practically apply this method in obstetrics and guide the management decisions.

Estimation of Fetal Weight by Clinical Methods and Ultrasonography and Comparing With Actual Birth Weight

“…The present study results showed that ultrasound results were not significantly different with actual birth weight, but Johnson's and Insler's formulas were significantly different with actual birth weight. Ultrasonography is as accurate as clinical methods in fetal weight estimation, which is consistent with some studies [30,31].…”

Estimation of fetal weight by clinical method and its comparison with ultrasonography and its correlation with actual birth weight in term singleton pregnancy

“…These nonstandard measurements do not improve the effectiveness of sonography to predict birth weight, except in rare cases such as diabetic mothers. 11 The anterior placenta, maternal obesity, and oligohydramnios are all technical restrictions for sonographic fetal weight estimates. Other downsides of ultrasonography include its complexity and labor-intensive nature, as well as its limited view of fetal components.…”

“…In routine obstetric practice, clinical examination is done by measuring the symphysio-fundal height at each antenatal visit similar to a study done by Ingale A et al 11 In this work, we compared clinical and sonographic methods of predicting fetal weight prospectively at term and found that clinical appears to be as accurate as ultrasonographic approaches, which is similar to the findings of Dare et al, Avirupa Guha Roy et al, 12 and Ingale A et al 11 Ultrasonography has become the recognised method for estimating fetal weight in most centres. Johnson's and Dawn's formulas for estimating clinical birth weight are now obsolete.…”