Abstract
During the first two hours of life the neonatal heart rate was monitored by ECG recording in 61 non-asphyctic and 15 asphyxiated newborn infants. Mothers of 42 of the non-asphyctic infants had obtained obstetric regional analgesia during labour. Nineteen of the non-asphyctic infants formed a reference group.
The ECG-signal, transmitted to an FM tape recorder was later digitized and further processed using an analyzing program on an IBM 370/155 computer.
The distribution of R-R variability of the different groups showed characteristic and significant differences. These results indicate a trend of progression in R-R variability with the severely asphyxiated infants at one of the extremes having the smallest R-R variability. With increasing R-R variability followed the groups of moderately asphyxiated , slightly asphyxiated infants, analgesia group of primiparous mothers, reference group of primiparae, analgesia group of multiparae succeeded by the reference group of multiparae at the other extreme, having the largest R-R variation. In the non-asphyxiated infants a significant negative correlation was found between neonatal heart rate variability and duration of labour, indicating a smaller variability with longer duration of labour.
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Bratteby, LE., Andersson, L. & Sjölin, S. Neonatal heart rate variability after intrauterine asphyxia and maternal obstetric regional analgesia: 24. Pediatr Res 14, 170 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198002000-00051
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198002000-00051
