Abstract: Placenta, serve as a mediation of nutrition and information exchange between mother and fetus, plays a vital role in maintaining the intrauterine growth and development of fetus. Placental function is based on its normal shape. Placental shape is often influenced by many factors, such as mother′s nutritional status, lifestyle, complications of pregnancy and operation history of uterine cavity. Those factors may directly or indirectly affect the growth of villous angiogenesis, leading to abnormally changes in placental shape, such as circumvallate and multi-lobate placenta. Abnormally shaped placenta has low efficiency in nutrients transporting and metabolism function, which to some extent, affects fetal growth and development with clinical manifestations including fetal intrauterine growth restriction, small for gestation age, fetal distress and even stillbirth, and other adverse pregnancy outcomes. Therefore, to understand those factors and their mechanisms that affect placental shape, and to evaluate and prevent those negative influence in many aspects, can reduce the adverse outcomes of pregnancy and fetal development to a certain extent.

Key words: Placenta, Chorionic villi, Embryonic development, Pregnancy outcome