Association of maternal height with delivery outcome: A prospective anthropometric study at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Southeast Nigeria

Background: Height is easy to measure and may serve as a triaging and referral tool in the rural communities of the West African subregion where a significant proportion of deliveries are undertaken by unskilled birth attendants with devastating maternal and perinatal outcomes. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the association between maternal height and the route of delivery. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study undertaken at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. A total of 180 consenting randomly selected pregnant participants who met the inclusion criteria and had presented in spontaneous labor at the maternity unit were selected for the study. Each participant′s sociodemographic data, height, mode of delivery, and neonatal birth weight were obtained using a semistructured proforma. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM-SPSS) version 22, Atlanta, Georgia. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 30.4 ± 4.2 years and the mean height was 164.5 ± 6.1 cm. Approximately 82% of the women had vaginal delivery. Majority (96.6%) of the participants were booked and more than 75% have had previous vaginal delivery. There was no significant association between the maternal height and mode of delivery (P = 0.95). However, there was a significant association between neonatal birthweight and route of delivery (P < 0.001). Conclusion: There is no significant association between maternal height and route of delivery in Abakiliki, Nigeria. Although height has traditionally been used in participant counseling regarding potential route of delivery, this study shows that height may not serve as an evidence-based tool in screening or predicting the route of delivery in the Abakaliki metropolis. Further larger studies are advocated to corroborate or refute this observation