Math 579 Final Report Modeling of Measurable Maternal Attributes

The objective of this project was to determine if the placental weight/ratio is affected by various maternal variables such as maternal age, BMI, gestational diabetes, and race using various mathematical approaches. A study was performed on 1229 mothers who were of different age groups, five different races, various BMI, and approximately 4% had gestational diabetes. We analyzed each of these four variables separately to see if there was any relationship between each of the variables and the placental weight or placental ratio statistically. We also studied whether the relationships would affect the placenta by a combination of two or more of these variables using K-means method, Principal Component Analysis and Logistic Regression. The use of all these mathematical approaches provided that out of the four maternal characteristics, maternal age and BMI had effects on placental weight and placental ratio. Our findings indicate that the results were statistically significant, but overall too weak to be used for future predictions.