ABSTRACT
Objective To discuss the relationship between repetitive variable deceleration with a short interval (RDSI) in labor and neonatal acidosis.Methods One hundred and seventy-seven electronic fetal heart monitoring (EFM) patterns within one hour preceding delivery in term singleton pregnancies were collected in Peking University Third Hospital between February 2011 to October 2013.Continued EFM were recorded before delivery.Analysis was conducted on general information of both mothers and babies,including pregnant complications,duration of labor,cord and placental factors,nature of amniotic fluid,Apgar score and neonatal cord blood gas.RDSI was defined as that over 50％ intervals between two decelerations (the end of the last deceleration to the beginning of the next one) ≤ 60 s which appeared repetitevly in a period of 20 minutes.Independent sample t test,rank sum test,Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test were applied for statistics and receiver operating characteristic curve was obtained from the information of those with RDSI.Results Twenty-four of the 177 women with RDSI were assigned to the study group (24 cases,13.6％) and the rest 153 cases without RDSI to the control group.Background information of women in the two groups was comparable according to the maternal age,gestational weeks at delivery and duration of labor (all P ＞ 0.05).The occurrence of meconium stained amniotic fluid in the study group was higher than that of the control group [16.7％ (4/24) vs 5.2％ (7/153),x2=5.204,P=0.045],while the pH and base excess value of the neonatal blood gas in the study group were lower [7.20 (7.13-7.28) vs 7.29 (7.25-7.33),Z=-4.490;-6.10 (-4.67 to-9.62) mmol/L vs-3.20 (-4.90 to-1.55) mmol/L,Z=-5.044;P ≤ 0.01] resulting a higher rate of neonatal acidosis [50.0％(12/24) vs 7.8％ (12/153),x2=31.456,P ＜ 0.01].No significant difference was found in the incidence of neonatal asphyxia between the two groups.The area under the curve was 0.774 (95％CI:0.579-0.969).Conclusion RDSI in labor might indicate a high risk of neonatal acidosis.