[Systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels of healthy newborn infants]

OBJECTIVE: To identify normative blood pressure (BP) levels for Brazilian newborn infants and to define a cut-off point for high systolic and diastolic BP in this population.METHODS: 634 healthy term neonates, aged 12 to 36 hours, who were born in the Instituto Materno Infantil de Pernambuco (IMIP) were included in this survey. An oscillometric method was used to acess the neonates BP. To identify high BP levels the Second Task Force definition was applied.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The normative BP values for the study sample was 82.0 -/+ 7.5 mmHg for systolic and 41.7 -/+ 5.8 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure. The cut-off points for high blood pressure were >/= 95 mmHg and >/= 52 mmHg for systolic and diastolic blood pressure respectively. These results are similar to those reported in other surveys done in other countries.