[Type and incidence of abnormalities in 23,939 newborn infants in a 5-year period]. / Art und Häufigkeit von Missbildungen unter 23,939 Neugeborenen eines Zeitraumes von 5 Jahren.

23,939 children born consecutively at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Graz, over a 5-year period ending 31. 12. 1984 were surveyed for the presence of major malformations. 394 (1.6%) had a major congenital defect. Within the same time 392 infants died during the perinatal period, 86 of them being malformed (22%). The malformations were listed according the most likely mode of inheritance, revealing a total of 80 different congenital defects. About 70% of these malformations are associated with an increased recurrence risk (greater than 1%) and 15% carry a high risk of recurrence (greater than 10%). These facts point to the importance of prenatal diagnosis and proper genetic counselling.

[Heart function in infants and small children, whose mothers required tocolysis with hexoprenaline sulfate (Gynipral)]. / Untersuchungen der Herzfunktion an Säuglingen und Kleinkindern, deren Mütter in der Schwangerschaft mit Hexoprenalinsulfat (Gynipral) tokolysiert worden waren.

Cardiac function was investigated in 23 retrospectively selected children (mean age 15 months, range 2/12-3 4/12), whose mothers had undergone a successful course of tocolysis around the 31st week of pregnancy. Hexoprenaline sulfate (Gynipral) had been given at a mean cumulative dose of 51,103 micrograms over an average period of 13.8 days. The infants were born at term; cases with marked birth asphyxia, low birth weight or other perinatal problems possibly influencing cardiac performance were not included. The examination included a chest X-ray, ECG (all standard leads) and ultrasonography. There was no evidence of myocardial dysfunction which might have been the late result of untoward effects of the beta 2-mimetics given during the last trimester of pregnancy. All probands were normally developed: on cardiological examination an incidental systolic murmur was found in 2 infants and border-line cardiomegaly in another proband. ECG revealed a wandering pace-maker and occasional ventricular extrasystoles in one 3 month-old boy, which is not necessarily abnormal at this age. Two-dimensional echocardiography showed normal cardiac anatomy in all 23 probands. One-dimensional M-mode showed normal left ventricular function parameters. The slightly elevated myocardial contractility demonstrated by means of the M-mode was attributed to increased sympathetic tone in the non-sedated children.