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Foetal Complications During Complicated Delivery
Abstract
Birth has always been, in the history of mankind, a wonderful but dramatic moment as regarding the consequences that can derive from it if, as may happen, all does not proceed physiologically.
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To ascertain antepartum predictors of newborn encephalopathy in term infants.
Population based, unmatched case-control study.
Metropolitan area of Western Australia, June 1993 to September 1995.
All 164 term infants with moderate or severe newborn encephalopathy; 400 randomly selected controls.
Adjusted odds ratio estimates.
The birth prevalence of moderate or severe newborn encephalopathy was 3.8/1000 term live births. The neonatal fatality was 9.1%. The risk of newborn encephalopathy increased with increasing maternal age and decreased with increasing parity. There was an increased risk associated with having a mother who was unemployed (odds ratio 3.60), an unskilled manual worker (3.84), or a housewife (2.48). Other risk factors from before conception were not having private health insurance (3.46), a family history of seizures (2.55), a family history of neurological disease (2.73), and infertility treatment (4.43). Risk factors during pregnancy were maternal thyroid disease (9.7), severe pre-eclampsia (6.30), moderate or severe bleeding (3.57), a clinically diagnosed viral illness (2.97), not having drunk alcohol (2.91); and placenta described at delivery as abnormal (2.07). Factors related to the baby were birth weight adjusted for gestational age between the third and ninth centile (4.37) or below the third centile (38.23). The risk relation with gestational age was J shaped with 38 and 39 weeks having the lowest risk.
The causes of newborn encephalopathy are heterogeneous and many of the causal pathways start before birth.
A numeric scoring system for the assessment of hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy during the neonatal period was tested. The value of the score in predicting neurodevelopmental outcome at 1 y of age was assessed. Forty-five infants who developed hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy after birth were studied prospectively. In addition to the hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy score all but two infants had at least one cranial ultrasound examination. Thirty-five infants were evaluated at 12 months of age by full neurological examination and the Griffiths Scales of Mental Development. Five infants were assessed at an earlier stage, four who died before 6 months of age and one infant who was hospitalized at the time of the 12 month assessment. Twenty-three (58%) of the infants were normal and 17 (42%) were abnormal, 16 with cerebral palsy and one with developmental delay. The hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy score was highly predictive for outcome. The best correlation with outcome was the peak score; a peak score of 15 or higher had a positive predictive value of 92% and a negative predictive value of 82% for abnormal outcome, with a sensitivity and specificity of 71% and 96%, respectively. For the clinician working in areas where sophisticated technology is unavailable this scoring system will be useful for assessment of infants with hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy and for prognosis of neurodevelopmental outcome.
La rianimazione primaria del neonato
- E Margaria