asphyxiated newborn infants

Perinatal asphyxia is a cause of significant morbidity among full term infants, but breathing abnormalities after an asphyxic insult have not been studied. This report details breathing patterns of 16 full term asphyxiated infants, during the first week of life who were studied by transthoracic impedance pneumocardiograms. Pneumocardiograms were abnormal in 69% of infants in the asphyxiated group and 13% of infants in the control group. Significant differences were noted in the incidence of prolonged apnoea, the percentage of periodic breathing, and in apnoea density. These results indicate that there are significant abnormalities in the breathing pattern of full term infants, during their first week, after perinatal asphyxia. Similar abnormalities have been described in infants who had experienced 'near miss' sudden infant death syndrome. Department of Paediatrics, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA Correspondence to: Dr P Sasidharan, Division of Neonatology, Box 174, Milwaukee County Medical Center, 8700 W Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226, USA. Accepted 21 November 1991 Perinatal asphyxia is a cause of significant morbidity among full term infants. Among the central nervous system manifestations, hypoxicischaemic encephalopathy is the major event that leads to clinical symptoms including seizures.' Many affected infants develop respiratory failure requiring artificial ventilation for a few days. Whether the respiratory failure is due to the direct effect of asphyxia on the respiratory center or to a global suppression of neuronal activity from severe hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy is not certain. We have observed several episodes of apnoea not associated with (electroencephalography proved) seizures in full term newborn infants during the postasphyxial state in the nursery. As the breathing pattern of full term neonates who suffered perinatal asphyxia has not been studied in the past, the objective was to study their breathing. Significant abnormalities in the breathing patterns of these full term asphyxiated newborns was found and the findings reported here. As similar abnormalities in breathing are seenin infants who had nearly experienced sudden infant death syndrome ('near miss' SIDS), hypoxia may possibly be the common initiating event responsible for such abnormalities. Materials and methods Sixteen full term infants of appropriate size for gestational age and with a history of perinatal asphyxia were studied. Asphyxia was defined as an Apgar score of 4 or less at 5 minutes after birth and an arterial pH of less than 7-24 with a base deficit in excess of -10 within 30 minutes after birth. Infants with clinical seizures were excluded from the study. Infants with congenital anomalies, congenital infections, and clinically proved early onset sepsis were excluded from the study. The mean (SD) birth weight was 3365 (260) g at a gestational age of 40 weeks (range 38-42 weeks). There were 10 boys and six girls. Sixteen randomly selected full term neonates, also of appropriate size for gestational age, served as controls (eight boys and eight girls). Their mean Apgar score at 5 minutes was 9-4 (range 9-10), and their mean (SD) birth weight was 3310 (315) g at a gestational age of 39 9 weeks (range 3842). Twelve hour nocturnal transthoracic impedance pneumocardiograms were obtained between 3 and 7 days of age. These recordings were made on a cassette tape which was subsequently analysed on a computer. The computer software is programmed to report the following variables: apnoea duration of greater than 15 seconds, of 11-15 seconds, or greater than 5 seconds; apnoea density; percentage of periodic breathing; bradycardia; and disorganised breathing. Apnoea density (A6/D%) is defined as the total duration of apnoeic episodes of 6 seconds or longer divided by total sleep time and multiplied by 100. Bradycardia is defined as heart rate of less than 80 per minute lasting 5 or more seconds. Periodic breathing is defined as three or more apnoeic spells of 3 seconds or longer interrupted by 20 seconds or less of normal breathing without apnoea; the total duration of periodic breathing is expressed as a percentage of total sleep time. Disorganised breathing is defined as short apnoeic episodes accompanied by bradycardia during sleep. Scoring of the pneumocardiogram was carried out by a computer equipped with software programmed to generate a report (Medical Graphics).2 The following criteria were used to define normal pneumocardiogram results. A pneumocardiogram is considered normal if there are no episodes of prolonged apnoea (apnoea lasting longer than 15 seconds in duration), apnoea density is less than 0 9, and periodic breathing is less than 3-5% and there are no episodes of bradycardia nor disorganised breathing. These criteria have been published by others.Y7 All pneumocardiograms recorded on cassette tapes were analysed the next morning to generate hard copy at a recorder speed of 2-4 seconds/mm of paper. Pneumocardiograms were done at a mean postnatal age of 4-06 days (range 3-6) in the control group and 5 days (range 4-7) in the asphyxiated group. Statistical analyses were carried out by two tailed t tests for individual 440 group.bmj.com on June 20, 2017 Published by http://adc.bmj.com/ Downloaded from