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Relationship of Neonatal Apnea to Development at Three Years
CLAIRE B. ERNHART, Ph.D.;
FRANCES K. GRAHAM, Ph.D.;
DON THURSTON, M.D.
AMA Arch Neurol. 1960;2(5):504-510.
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The role of perinatal events in producing defect has long aroused both interest and controversy. Recently, attention has centered on those perinatal experiences which reduce the oxygen supply and lead to anoxia or asphyxia.* That anoxia can cause death is not doubted. The question is whether or not, if the organism survives, there are permanent residual effects.
The present study was undertaken to determine what residual effects, if any, follow perinatal anoxia in the human organism. Essentially, the procedure consisted of studying a number of newborn infants and then reexamining them at the age of 3 years.
The original sample consisted of 717 newborn infants, gathered over a period of two and one-half years. Of this group, 421 were chosen for the three-year follow-up study. Children were excluded if they had mild or questionable complications or congenital defects, or if they had not been born on the inpatient service of
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
St. Louis; Madison, Wis.; St. Louis
From the Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Madison, and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.
Footnotes
Accepted for publication Jan. 18, 1960.
Read before the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases, Dec. 12, 1959, New York; to be printed as part of the Proceedings of that association.
Supported by Research Grant B685 from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Public Health Service.
Decisions as to terminology are difficult to make in this area, on the basis either of usage or of sense. In a discussion of the question at a recent conference in Puerto Rico,10 Dr. Windle stated that he preferred the term "asphyxia" because it implies anoxia plus accumulation of waste materials. Since he is employing an experimental technique with animals and can speak authoritatively of the physiological changes consequent upon his method, the choice of terms appears justified. However, a clinical study of the type to be reported here deals with a variety of perinatal phenomena, and the physiological changes accompanying them are unknown. In such a circumstance, a term requiring as little as possible in the way of inference would appear desirable. Consequently, we have spoken of "apnea" when referring to children who were observed to be "not breathing" and have used the term "anoxia" to cover both these cases and those with various clinical signs of intrauterine difficulty or of possible interference with the oxygen supply to the fetus.
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