SynthesisBMC pregnancy and childbirth2023
The role of fetal heart rate in first trimester sonograms in prediction of fetal sex: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Investigating the Effect of Endometrial Thickness Changes and Compaction on the Fertility Rate of Patients Undergoing ART: A Prospective Study.Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology of India · 2025Article
- Early fetal sex determination: the predictive value of anogenital distance and fetal heart rate in first-trimester ultrasound.American journal of neurodegenerative disease · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEarly 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.
aimWe 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.
methodsThis 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.
resultsA 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).
conclusionThis 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.
trial registrationPROSPERO: CRD42023418291.
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