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Apgar score, meconium and acidaemia at birth in small‐for‐gestational age infants born at term, and their relation to neonatal neurological morbidity
Author(s) -
DIJXHOORN M. J.,
VISSER G. H. A.,
TOUWEN B. C. L.,
HUISJES H. J.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
bjog: an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.157
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1471-0528
pISSN - 1470-0328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0528.1987.tb03758.x
Subject(s) - medicine , asphyxia , meconium , apgar score , obstetrics , gestational age , amniotic fluid , pediatrics , small for gestational age , perinatal asphyxia , birth weight , fetus , pregnancy , biology , genetics
Summary. Neonatal neurological morbidity was studied in relation to Apgar score, meconium stained amniotic fluid and acidaemia at birth in 247 small‐for‐gestational age (SGA) maturely born infants. SGA infants, and especially the severely SGA infants and those born abdominally, showed higher rates of neurological morbidity, acidaemia and meconium stained amniotic fluid than appropriate‐for‐gestational age (AGA) controls. The examined indicators of asphyxia at birth showed slightly higher correlation coefficients with the ‘neonatal neurological optimality score’(NNOS) in SGA, than in AGA term infants, but the percentage of explained variance was low, except in the 23 infants born abdominally. In this group poor neurological outcome was restricted to the 14 infants who showed signs of fetal hypoxaemia diagnosed by decelerative fetal heart rate (FHR) patterns. In 11 of them, FHR decelerations occurred antepartum. These FHR abnormalities appear to be better predictors for the neonatal neurological outcome than indicators of asphyxia at birth.