Cerebral palsy not identified by fetal heart monitoring

One reason the incidence of cerebral palsy in term infants has not changed since the 1960s is that fetal heart monitoring does not identify babies diagnosed with white matter brain injury after birth, according to a March 26, 2004, news release from Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore. White brain matter injury can occur if a fetus does not get enough oxygen from its mother's blood. Physicians use fetal heart monitoring as the primary method of identifying babies who later may be diagnosed with brain injury.

Researchers examined a database of infants born at Johns Hopkins between June 1999 and September 2001. They found 40 babies with white brain matter injury and matched them with 40 babies who were delivered at the same gestational age (ie, between 23 and 34 weeks) in the same manner. Researchers then examined fetal heart monitoring data to determine whether there were any differences that may have foretold of impending brain injury, and they did not find any.

Fetal Heart Monitoring Ineffective at Diagnosing Cerebral Palsy (news release, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Medicine, March 26, 2004) http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press _releases/2004/O3_26_04.html. (accessed 29 March 2004).