Maternal Socio-demographic Factors and Nutritional Status as Predictors of Caesarean Delivery at Hospitals in Rajshahi City, Bangladesh

Introduction: A caesarean delivery is a major surgery with risks of severe bleeding, scarring, infections, reactions to anesthesia and long-lasting pain. The aim of the study was to determine the predictors of caesarean delivery at hospitals in Rajshahi city, Bangladesh. Methods: Data was collected from 194 women who delivered at three private and one public hospital maternity wards in Rajshahi city between January and March 2013. A questionnaire was used to collect socio-demographic background of the mothers. Body mass index was computed to determine overweight and underweight status of the women. Results: The prevalence of caesarean delivery at the hospitals studied was 77.3%. Socio-demographic factors and nutrition status that were significantly associated with the type of birth delivery were considered as independent variables in a logistic regression model. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that older women (age z 25 year) were more likely to undergo caesarean delivery than younger women. Women with higher education were more likely to have caesarean delivery as compared to women without formal schooling. Overweight women had a higher likelihood of caesarean delivery than women with normal weight and underweight. Conclusion: The study recorded a high prevalence of caesarean deliveries at the hospitals in Rajshahi city. Age, educational level and BMI status of the women were associated with caesarian deliveries.

Multiple regression analysis of anthropometric measurements influencing the cephalic index of male Japanese university students

<p><b>INTRODUCTION</b>Cephalic index (CI), the ratio of head breadth to head length, is widely used to categorise human populations. The aim of this study was to access the impact of anthropometric measurements on the CI of male Japanese university students.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>This study included 1,215 male university students from Tokyo and Kyoto, selected using convenient sampling. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the effect of anthropometric measurements on CI.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The variance inflation factor (VIF) showed no evidence of a multicollinearity problem among independent variables. The coefficients of the regression line demonstrated a significant positive relationship between CI and minimum frontal breadth (p < 0.01), bizygomatic breadth (p < 0.01) and head height (p < 0.05), and a negative relationship between CI and morphological facial height (p < 0.01) and head circumference (p < 0.01). Moreover, the coefficient and odds ratio of logistic regression analysis showed a greater likelihood for minimum frontal breadth (p < 0.01) and bizygomatic breadth (p < 0.01) to predict round-headedness, and morphological facial height (p < 0.05) and head circumference (p < 0.01) to predict long-headedness. Stepwise regression analysis revealed bizygomatic breadth, head circumference, minimum frontal breadth, head height and morphological facial height to be the best predictor craniofacial measurements with respect to CI.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The results suggest that most of the variables considered in this study appear to influence the CI of adult male Japanese students.</p>