Developmental outcome at 6.5 years after acidosis in term newborns: a population-based study.

OBJECTIVES: Infants who develop encephalopathy after perinatal asphyxia have an increased risk of death and adverse neurologic outcome. Conflicting results exist concerning outcome in healthy infants with metabolic acidosis at birth. The aim of the current study was to evaluate whether metabolic acidosis at birth in term infants who appear healthy is associated with long-term developmental abnormalities. METHODS: From a population-based cohort (14,687 deliveries), 78 infants were prospectively identified as having metabolic acidosis (umbilical artery pH < 7.05 and base deficit in the extracellular fluid >12.0 mmol/L). Two matched controls per case were selected. The child health and school health care records were scrutinized for developmental abnormalities. RESULTS: Outcome measures at 6.5 years of age for 227 of 234 children (97%) were obtained. No differences were found concerning neurologic or behavioral problems in need of referral action or neurodevelopmental diagnosis in comparison of control children with acidotic children who had appeared healthy at birth, ie, had not required special neonatal care or had no signs of encephalopathy. CONCLUSIONS: Infants born with cord metabolic acidosis and who appear well do not have an increased risk for neurologic or behavioral problems in need of referral actions or special teaching approaches at the age of 6.5 years.

Swedish randomized controlled trial of cardiotocography only versus cardiotocography plus ST analysis of fetal electrocardiogram revisited: analysis of data according to standard versus modified intention-to-treat principle.

OBJECTIVE: To undertake a renewed analysis of data from the previously published Swedish randomized controlled trial on intrapartum fetal monitoring with cardiotocography (CTG-only) vs. CTG plus ST analysis of fetal electrocardiogram (CTG+ST), using current standards of intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis and to compare the results with those of the modified ITT (mITT) and per protocol analyses. METHODS: Renewed extraction of data from the original database including all cases randomized according to primary case allocation (n=5 049). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Metabolic acidosis in umbilical artery at birth (pH <7.05, base deficit in extracellular fluid >12.0 mmol/l) including samples of umbilical vein blood or neonatal blood if umbilical artery blood was missing. RESULTS: The metabolic acidosis rates were 0.66% (17 of 2 565) and 1.33% (33 of 2 484) in the CTG+ST and CTG-only groups, respectively [relative risk (RR) 0.50; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28-0.88; p=0.019]. The original mITT gave RR 0.47, 95%CI 0.25-0.86 (p=0.015), mITT with correction for 10 previously misclassified cases RR 0.48, 95%CI 0.24-0.96 (p=0.038) and per protocol analysis RR 0.40, 95%CI 0.20-0.80 (p=0.009). The level of significance of the difference in metabolic acidosis rates between the two groups remained unchanged in all analyses. CONCLUSION: Re-analysis of data according to the ITT principle showed that regardless of the method of analysis, the Swedish randomized controlled trial maintained its ability to demonstrate a significant reduction in metabolic acidosis rate when using CTG+ST analysis for fetal surveillance in labor.