Asian Research Journal of Mathematics

Assessment of maternal health risks is critical for detecting pregnancy-related complications and supporting timely clinical interventions. Maternal age and blood pressure are important risk factors that are frequently measured because of their association with adverse outcomes for mothers and infants. However, limited research has examined the effects of these risk factors on multiple maternal physiological parameters using a multivariate analytical approach. This study investigated the independent and combined influence of maternal age, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure on maternal heart rate and body temperature using multivariate multiple regression analysis. Data were obtained from a cross-sectional secondary dataset comprising 500 pregnant women who attended antenatal clinics at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Nigeria, from 2020 to 2025. The independent variables were maternal age, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure, while heart rate and body temperature were the dependent variables. Before model estimation, the assumptions of linearity, multivariate normality and homoscedasticity were assessed. Statistical significance was tested at the 5% level. Maternal age and systolic blood pressure had significant effects on maternal heart rate, whereas diastolic blood pressure had no significant effect. No predictor had a significant effect on maternal body temperature. The multivariate analysis further indicated significant main and two-way interaction effects on the combined maternal physiological variables, but no significant three-way interaction effect. These findings support the application of multivariate multiple regression for the simultaneous analysis of maternal physiological outcomes and highlight the importance of jointly evaluating maternal age and blood pressure during antenatal assessment.