Foetal distress and neonatal asphyxia.

PART I WITH improvements in maternal obstetric management, it is possible to turn increasingly to the care of the child, especially throughout labour and in the immediate postnatal period, when the child is at greatest risk. Though the signs considered to indicate foetal distress have been recognized for many years, it is, however, also necessary to assess the urgency and the severity of the threat to the child’s life, for, although the majority of babies recover quickly at birth, any tendency to foetal asphyxia is evidence that the margin of safety has been reduced. It is the purpose of this investigation to determine the incidence and evaluate the significance of the various classical signs of foetal distress, to correlate the occurrence of these signs with the incidence of foetal asphyxia at birth, and to consider whether it is desirable to take into account minor deviations from normal.