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Body Temperature of the Newborn Infant in Relation to Placental Transfusion 1
Author(s) -
OH WILLIAM,
LIND JOHN
Publication year - 1967
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1967.tb15289.x
Subject(s) - medicine , earlobe , rectal temperature , heel , rectum , palm , skin temperature , surgery , anesthesia , anatomy , dermatology , physics , quantum mechanics
Summary Temperatures of the rectum, skin areas of the heels, palms, earlobes and epigastrium were serially measured in 36 normal full‐term newborn infants from birth through the 5th day of life. The umbilical cords of 14 infants were clamped immediately after birth, while in 22 infants the cords were tied after arterial pulsation had stopped. At birth the mean skin temperatures of heels and palms dropped precipitously from 35.4 o C to 29.8 o C during the first 10 minutes of life. The heel and palm temperatures showed a further decline during the first 4 hours of age, while the earlobe and epigastrium temperatures gradually increased at the same time. The early clamped infants had a significantly lower skin temperature at the palms, heels and to a lesser extent at the earlobes. This is considered as indirect evidence of lower peripheral skin blood flow in this group of infants. No difference was observed in the cutaneous epigastric and rectal temperatures between the two groups.