ABO Blood Group And Reproductive Performance

Abstract

A cohort of 2839 delivered mothers between January 2000 and October 2003 were studied to investigate the influence of the ABO blood group on their reproductive performance. There were no statistical significant differences between the four ABO blood group phenotypes, in the 16 reproductive variable analysed. Blood group A phenotype constituted 22.48%, while AB, B, and O blood groups made up 1.94, 15.28 and 60.3 percent respectively. The mean age of the mothers in the study was 30.2+4.85 years. The mean height was 1.64+0.542 metres, while the mean age at menarche was 14.2+3.71 years. The parity distribution amongst the mothers in the subgroups was similar (1.52+1.63), and number of children per mother (1.33+1.47). The incidence of multiple pregnancies was highest amongst blood group B mothers (5.4%). Blood group AB mothers have more female infants, female/male ratio 1.11:1, (Chi square for linear trend =0.24, P=0.62, not significant). The ABO blood group categorization appears to have no major adverse influence on human reproductive performance. This is an important piece of information for the obstetrician who is directly involved in patients care and should be noted by the various religious bodies involved in providing health services and marriage counselling in our society. Keywords : ABO Blood Group, Reproductive performance, population mapping, gene frequency Journal of Mining and Geology Vol. 5 (1&2) 2006: pp. 36-43