Effect of preeclampsia on blood pressure in newborn very low birth weight infants.

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that very low birth infants born to mothers with preeclampsia have higher blood pressure over the first week of life than infants whose mothers did not have preeclampsia. METHOD: Infants born at<1,350 g who survived at least one week were stratified by gestational age ( or= 29 completed weeks) and grouped by the presence or absence of preeclampsia. Highest and lowest systolic and mean and diastolic blood pressures were recorded for each of the first seven days of life. Serial blood pressures were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA: The presence of hypertension (defined as >or= 3 days with the highest systolic blood pressure>90th percentile for gestational age stratum and day-specific range) was analyzed by binary logistic regression. RESULTS: Infants >or= 29 weeks gestational age born to mothers with preeclampsia had higher blood pressures than did controls. Infants or= 29 weeks gestation. The long-term significance of this finding is not known.

Asymmetry of cerebral blood flow velocity in low birth weight infants.

BACKGROUND: In premature infants, intraventricular hemorrhage occurs more commonly in the left than the right hemisphere. We have demonstrated previously that cerebral blood flow velocity is lower in the left than the right middle cerebral artery in the first few hours after birth. This may be due to the open ductus arteriosus. OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that blood flow velocity is lower in the left than the right middle cerebral artery only when the ductus arteriosus is open. STUDY DESIGN: Infants born at 25-33 weeks' gestation were enrolled. Middle cerebral artery blood flow velocities and coefficients of variation were measured on the left, followed by the right, on days 1 and 7 of life. Echocardiography identified 67 infants (25-33 weeks, 517-2,371 g) whose ductus arteriosus was open on day 1 and closed on day 7. RESULTS: Systolic (26.4 +/- 7.4 vs. 29.6 +/- 7.2 cm/s), mean (12.4 +/- 4.0 vs. 15.6 +/- 4.6 cm/s) and end-diastolic (5.3 +/- 2.2 vs. 6.8 +/- 2.9 cm/s) blood flow velocities were lower (p < 0.01) and the corresponding coefficients of variation were higher (p < 0.01) on the left on day 1. Neither the absolute Doppler blood flow velocities nor the coefficients of variation differed between the left and right sides on day 7. CONCLUSIONS: Blood flow velocity is lower and more variable in the left compared to the right middle cerebral artery on day 1 of life in premature infants. These differences are not found on day 7. We speculate that this difference is due to the associated ductus arteriosus patency.