Table 7 Participants’ recommendations when asked to suggest data items relevant to monitoring incidence or risk factors for avoidable perinatal brain injury.

Clinical indicators of brain injury

Neonatal MRI (n = 12)

Encephalopathy criteria (n = 3)

Sarnat score (n = 1)

Apgar and/or cord pH (n = 9), especially Apgar at 5 minutes (n = 1)

Presence of convulsions (n = 11)

Seizures (n = 3)

EEG (n = 1)

Difficulty in ventilating (n = 1)

Evidence of Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn (n = 1)

Interventions indicative of efforts to avoid or reduce the impact of brain injury

Therapeutic cooling (n = 23)

Therapeutic hyperthermia (n = 1)

Resuscitation (n = 4)

Respiratory effort (n = 1)

Cord clamping and time of cord clamping (n = 1)

Fetal scalp blood testing (n = 1)

Support for breathing/circulation and drugs used in neonatal intensive care management (n = 1)

Postnatal/neonatal conditions or observations

Blood gas (n = 19)

Any package of data indicators for neurological abnormalities (n = 2), such as the Glasgow Coma scale (n = 1)

CFAM (n = 2)

Decreased central tone, fitting, or altered tone (n = 3)

Lactate or creatinine at first infant’s blood gas (n = 3)

Baby’s behaviour (n = 2)

Hypertonia, floppiness, and abnormal reflexes (n = 2)

Primary sepsis (n = 2)

Glucose levels (n = 1)

Jaundice (n = 1)

Hypoglycaemia (n = 1)

Baby’s colour (n = 1)

Kernicterus (n = 1)

Comatose (n = 1)

Blood sugars (n = 1)

Thompson scoring (n = 1)

Positive microbiology results (n = 1)

Service indicators

Transfer to a specialist unit (n = 14)

Duration of stay in NICU (n = 11)

Maternal demographic and/or antenatal history

Woman’s health and risk factors such as demographics, morbidities, history, concurrent maternal medical conditions (n = 9)

Antenatal history (n = 3)

Women’s ethnicity and socioeconomic status, including social deprivation and BAME status (n = 1)

Antenatal bleeding (n = 1)

Ultrasound (n = 1)

Multiple births, breech births (n = 1)

Gestation (n = 2)

Fetal growth restriction at the onset of labour (n = 6)

Size, weight, ratio, and abdominal circumference (n = 1)

Growth (n = 1)

Brain sparing, end doppler, shrunken liver (n = 1)

Intrapartum risk factors

Duration of the first stage (n = 5)

Duration of the second stage (n = 5)

CTG classifications (n = 5)

Meconium staining of the amniotic fluid (n = 5)

Bleeding during labour (n = 3)

Pyrexia (n = 3)

Raised maternal temperature (n = 1)

Duration of any cytokinin augmentation (n = 1)

Fetal movements (n = 2)

Presence of sentinel event (n = 1)

Turtling (shoulder dystocia) (n = 1)

Whether maternal heartbeat was considered normal or abnormal (n = 1)

Whether abruption followed mother’s complaint of pain (n = 2)

Other

Mode of delivery (n = 2)

Optiv records (e.g., whether caesarean birth, etc.) (n = 2)

Intermittent auscultation (n = 1)

Whether there was renal/liver injury and other secondary injuries (n = 1)