Effect of prenatal nutritional intervention on foetal growth restriction: a real-world study in Shenzhen, China.

OBJECTIVE: Fetal growth restriction (FGR) is the primary cause of infant morbidity and mortality. Although nutritional intervention is generally used to cure FGR, its effects on early- and late-onset FGR have not been reported. This study aimed to resolve this issue in a real-world setting. STUDY DESIGN: We collected the data of pregnant women whose fetuses were diagnosed with FGR and subsequently born at Nanshan Women and Children's Care Hospital in Shenzhen, China. We conducted a MANOVA and series of Cox regression analyses to evaluate the effects of a prenatal nutritional intervention on early and late FGR after adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS: Our results demonstrated that the average birth weights in the four sub-intervention groups were 50.36-160.05 g higher than those in the nonintervention group. These differences were insignificant with respect to early-onset FGR. In late-onset FGR, however, the interventions led to birth weight increases of 164.95-244.45 g greater than those in the nonintervention group, and these differences were significant. During early-onset FGR, four different nutritional interventions reduced the incidence of small-for-gestational age by 8.00-13.76% relative to the incidence in the nonintervention group, while in late-onset FGR, the incidence decreased by 11.37-17.39%. CONCLUSIONS: Our results based on a real-world setting reaffirmed that a prenatal nutritional intervention could improve the birth outcomes in cases of FGR and further suggested a better effectiveness on late-onset FGR.