morphine and Movement-Disorders

78 babies weighing less than 1500 gm at birth, surviving the neonatal period and available for follow-up, were studied. Data pertaining to perinatal events previously reported were correlated with neurological outcome over a 6-30 month period of evaluation. Motor abnormalities were found to correlate with the presence of meconium and the occurrence of rapid delivery. Mental handicap correlated inversely with hypocalcemia and birthweight. Overall score correlated with meconium and inversely with labor intolerance. These events were the only ones of a host of factors discovered by stepwise discriminant analysis among many maternal-fetal and neonatal variables. The importance of these observations is speculative.

Topics: Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Hypocalcemia; Infant, Low Birth Weight; Infant, Newborn; Intellectual Disability; Meconium; Movement Disorders; Obstetric Labor Complications; Pregnancy; Time Factors