Newborn brain injuries stem from infections, not delivery

Medical malpractice cases frequently try to link injuries to the white matter of a newborn’s brain — a precursor to cerebral palsy and other disorders — to the baby’s delivery, though a new Johns Hopkins study demonstrates that such injuries are more closely associated with neonatal infections.

White matter, the tracts of nerve fibers that communicate messages in the brain, is generally injured at so-called “end zones” between the long, penetrating arteries that supply blood to the brain. These zones are susceptible to the type of fall in cerebral blood flow and oxygen that could occur during complications in delivery, as marked by excess acid in the umbilical cord.

The Hopkins team reviewed medical records of 150 premature babies who had white matter injuries and were born between May 1994 and September 2001. They compared each baby’s delivery to that of the next healthy baby delivered at the same gestational age (23-24 weeks), looking for causes of problems.

The researchers found that acid levels in the umbilical cords were similar in both brain-injured and healthy babies, as were many other factors such as maternal infections and the percentage born by Caesarean versus vaginal delivery. The only difference noted was that brain-injured babies were more likely to have evidence of infections of the cerebrospinal fluid, blood and windpipe.

“Our study refutes the fact that white matter injuries are caused by delivery,” says Ernest Graham, M.D., senior study author and assistant professor of gynecology/obstetrics. “The biggest association with these injuries in our study was clearly neonatal infections.”

Graham says while you can treat the infections after birth, it’s hard to know when they originated. Also, even if the infections are treated, the babies could still be at higher risk for permanent brain damage.

Graham, Ernest et al, “Neonatal White Matter Injury is Associated with Culture Positive Infections and Only Rarely with Metabolic Acidosis.”

The above news tip is based on an abstract or poster to be presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s 24th Annual Meeting, held Feb. 2-7 in New Orleans.

To pursue this story, please contact Trent Stockton at 410-955-8665 or tstockt1@jhmi.edu. Please observe the embargo.

Media Contact

Trent Stockton EurekAlert!

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors