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Fig. 2 | BMC Medicine

Fig. 2

From: Placenta mediates the effect of maternal hypertension polygenic score on offspring birth weight: a study of birth cohort with fetal growth velocity data

Fig. 2

Causal mediation analysis. a, b Mediation model of the relationship between maternal SBP-increasing PGS (exposure), placental weight (mediator), and birth weight (outcome). Placental weight has a significant average causal mediation effect (ACME) for decreasing birth weight by maternal SBP PGS (effect = − 0.27 [− 0.4, − 0.15], p < 2.0 × 10−16), whereas the average direct effect (ADE) is not significant (effect = − 0.04 [− 0.2, 0.11], p = 0.55). c The sensitivity parameter ρ denotes the correlation coefficient between the residuals of the mediator and outcome regressions [44]. A sensitivity analysis performed by examining how the estimated ACME changes while the value of ρ varies shows that ACME estimates are negative and not altered for a wide range of ρ values below 0.6

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