A descriptive study to assess the relationship between the placental weight and fetal weight among the parturient mothers

Weight of the placental has been used since the 1940s as an index for the appropriateness of fetal growth. It has been shown that development of placenta has got influence on birth weight and placental weight. The aim of this study is to find the weight of placenta and fetus in a selected hospital among normal singleton pregnancies from 37–40 weeks.

The study used descriptive design and the data was collected from 30 parturient mothers at 300 bedded Our Lady of Health Hospital, Thanjavur. The parameters of baby and placenta were measured. The descriptive and inferential statistics were done to perform frequency, mean, standard deviation, correlation and chi-square calculations.

This study disclosed that babies born with weight between 2300–4000 kg and the placenta weighed from 405–620 grams and there is a significant correlation between placental weight with birth weight with r value being 0.919.

The findings indicate that the baby weight is strongly correlating with placental weight.