Study on the correlation between maternal serum uric acid and foetal birth weight in Naqu, Tibet

Abstract

In high-altitude regions, low birth weight is mainly caused by hypoxia. We aimed to determine whether maternal serum uric acid (SUC) level was associated with decreased foetal birth weight. The relevant data of individual pregnant women who delivered between 37 and 40 weeks in the People’s Hospital of Naqu City, Tibet were retrospectively collected. The correlation between maternal SUC and birth weight was examined using multivariate linear regression analysis and subgroup analysis. The results showed that there was a significant negative correlation between SUC and birth weight in pregnant women with proteinuria, female foetuses, and primiparas. Fitting smoothing curve analysis showed that there was a negative linear correlation between SUC and birth weight in primiparas and female foetuses. Maternal SUC is negatively associated with foetal birth weight in a single pregnancy with proteinuria, primipara, or female foetuses in the Naqu region of Tibet, China.

IMPACT STATEMENT

• What is already known on this subject? Preeclampsia associated with hyperuricaemia can affect foetal birth weight, foetal birth weight in plains area is negatively correlated with maternal hyperuricaemia.

• What do the results of this study add? Maternal SUC was negatively correlated with foetal birth weight, especially in primipara, mothers with proteinuria, and pregnant girls.

• What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? The results suggest that attention should be paid to SUC in pregnant women, especially in primipara, mothers with proteinuria, and pregnant girls, in the prevention of low birth weight infants in Naqu Plateau area of Tibet.

Keywords:

• Serum uric acid
• birth weight
• proteinuria
• highlands
• hyperuricaemia

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all of the neonatologists of Shengjing Hospital and Naqu People’s Hospital for their efforts in the treatment of the neonates.

Author contributions

YY designed and conducted the research, data acquisition, and manuscript preparation. YS, XL and YH collected data and conducted research; JD analysed and interpreted data. YY, YS, and YW contributed to the conceptual design and manuscript revision. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the ethics committee of the People’s Hospital of Naqu, Tibet (No. 20200002). The People’s Hospital of Naqu provided administrative permissions for the research team to access and use the data included in this research. Data were extracted from medical records, and the consent to participate was unavailable due to the retrospective design of the study and difficulty in reconnection; however, the private information was well protected.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (Supplementary data).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Group medical aid project of the Natural Science Foundation of Tibet autonomous region under Grant XZ2020ZR-ZY87(Z); and Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province under Grant 2021-MS-05. These funding bodies accepted the study as proposed and played roles in protocol development, data collection, analysis and manuscript writing.