ABSTRACT
Background and Objective: Placental pathology has been implicated in the pathogenesis of preterm neonatal morbidity.However, the role of placental infection in the occurrence of neurological, lung, and infection morbidity among prematurely borninfant remains controversial. Furthermore, there is disagreement regarding the association between sepsis in preterm neonateand in utero exposure to placental infection.Objective: The present study was undertaken to investigate the association of placental pathology with the preterm and termdelivery.Materials and Methods: Design: This was a hospital-based observation study. The study included 100 placentas including60 preterm placenta and 40 term placenta from singleton live birth delivered at Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospitalfrom November 2018 to November 2019.Results: As placental weight is one of the key indicators of fetal intrauterine status, among term placenta 26% weighedbetween 501 and 750 g and 14% weighed between 251 and 500 g. In the late preterm placenta, 6% were within 501–750 gand 38%were within 251–500 g. Among the early preterm placentas, 2% were found to be within 100–250 g and 14% werefound to be within 251–500 g. Histopathological findings among term placenta in which 23% of the placentas were found to bewith normal morphology, having two arteries and one vein embedded in myxoid matrix and unremarkable, maternal surfacesshow mature vascularized villi and fetal parenchyma also shows mature villi and 5% showed features of chorioamnionitis,8% of the placentas revealed occasional focal areas of calcification on the maternal as well fetal surfaces, 15% showedinfarction, and 3% showed hemorrhagic changes. Histopathology findings among preterm placenta in which 14% normalmorphology, 21% of chorioamnionitis, 10% shows focal and extensive areas of infarction with increased syncytial knots, 4%had hemorrhagic and perivasculitis changes with focal hyalinized villi, and 5% had villitis with mixed inflammatory infiltratein the chorionic villi. Histopathology study among term and preterm comparison, it shows chorioamnionitis with Chi-square19.604 with confidence interval of 35.66–77.04% with P < 0.0001, calcification with P = 0.466, placental infarction withconfidence interval of 41.51–92.47% with P = 0.0002, placental hemorrhage with confidence interval of −31.33%–52.31%with P = 0.613, and villitis with confidence interval of 38.55–100% with P = 0.002. Relative risk with respect to histopathologyamong term and preterm placenta relative risk is 2.3 which means that preterm group has 2.3 times more risk of abnormalplacental histopathology than term group.Conclusion: Among histopathological study between term and preterm placenta, preterm placentas were most commonlyassociated with abnormal histopathological findings, among abnormal histopathological finding chorioamnionitis is the mostcommon.