Department of Radiology, School of Medicine Arak, University of Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran.
Student Research Committee, Arak University of Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran.
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2023 Aug 12;23(1):582. doi: 10.1186/s12884-023-05908-8.
Early fetal sex determination is worthy of providing alertness about possible x-linked disorders, as well as predicting sex-related pregnancy complications and outcomes. Satisfying the curiosity of parents is another advantage. In this way, several studies have been performed which have shown conflicting results.
We planned a systematic review for identifying any plausible role of Fetal Heart Rate (FHR) for early predicting fetal sex during the first trimester of non-complicated pregnancies.
This is a meta-analysis in which PubMed and Scopus databases were searched using different related keywords to find similar articles up to December 2022. Then the articles were screened to find eligible articles and finally, the articles entered in the meta-analysis were analyzed using Stata software (Stata Corp, College Station, TX). Standardized mean difference (SMD) and their 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated.
A total of 223 articles were evaluated and five articles were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed that there is a significant heterogeneity between the articles (p = 0.012, I-squared = 69.0%). The results of meta-analysis with a random model showed that there is no significant difference between male and female genders in terms of mean FHR (SMD = 0.04, 95%CI = -0.09-0.16, Z = 0.59, p = 0.553).
This systematic review and meta-analysis showed that even though male fetuses show faster FHR but such sex-related difference is minimal. Therefore, first-trimester FHR is not a reliable predictive test for fetal sex determination. Further studies are recommended to achieve a more precise conclusion.
PROSPERO: CRD42023418291.
早期胎儿性别鉴定值得引起重视，以便对可能的 X 连锁疾病进行预警，同时预测与性别相关的妊娠并发症和结局。满足父母的好奇心是另一个优势。因此，已经进行了一些研究，但结果相互矛盾。
我们计划进行一项系统评价，以确定在非复杂妊娠的第一孕期中，胎儿心率（FHR）是否具有早期预测胎儿性别的合理作用。
这是一项荟萃分析，使用不同的相关关键字在 PubMed 和 Scopus 数据库中进行搜索，以找到截至 2022 年 12 月的类似文章。然后筛选文章以找到合格的文章，最后使用 Stata 软件（StataCorp，College Station，TX）分析纳入荟萃分析的文章。估计标准化均数差（SMD）及其 95%置信区间（CI）。
共评估了 223 篇文章，其中 5 篇文章纳入荟萃分析。结果表明，文章之间存在显著异质性（p=0.012，I-squared=69.0%）。使用随机模型的荟萃分析结果表明，男性和女性的平均 FHR 之间没有显著差异（SMD=0.04，95%CI=-0.09-0.16，Z=0.59，p=0.553）。
这项系统评价和荟萃分析表明，尽管男性胎儿的 FHR 更快，但这种性别相关的差异很小。因此，第一孕期的 FHR 不是胎儿性别鉴定的可靠预测试验。建议进行进一步的研究以得出更精确的结论。
PROSPERO：CRD42023418291。
