An artificial intelligence approach to predict infants’ health status at birth

Background: Machine learning could be used for prognosis/diagnosis of maternal and neonates’ diseases by analyzing the data sets and profiles obtained from a pregnant mother. Purpose: We aimed to develop a prediction model based on machine learning algorithms to determine important maternal characteristics and neonates’ anthropometric profiles as the predictors of neonates’ health status. Methods: This study was conducted among 1280 pregnant women referred to healthcare centers to receive antenatal care. We evaluated several machine learning methods, including support vector machine (SVM), Ensemble, K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Naïve Bayes (NB), and Decision tree classifiers, to predict newborn health state. Results: The minimum redundancy-maximum relevance (MRMR) algorithm revealed that variables, including head circumference of neonates, pregnancy intention, and drug consumption history during pregnancy, were top-scored features for classifying normal and unhealthy infants. Among the different classification methods, the SVM classifier had the best performance. The average values of accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) in the test group were 75%, 75%, 76%, 76%, and 65%, respectively, for SVM model. Conclusion: Machine learning methods can efficiently forecast the neonate's health status among pregnant women. This study proposed a new approach toward the integration of maternal data and neonate profiles to facilitate the prediction of neonates’ health status.