Consequences of chronic hypoxia in newborns

Fetal hypoxia is a syndrome caused by a lack of oxygen or impaired tissue oxygen absorption. This is not an independent disease, but a symptom that indicates a congenital or acquired pathology or a complicated course of pregnancy or childbirth. Oxygen starvation in the early stages of pregnancy can slow down the development of the child and lead to abnormalities, and in the later stages it can lead to damage to the nervous system, cerebral edema, kidney failure and other serious pathologies.

Intrauterine fetal hypoxia is detected, according to various sources, in 4-10.5% of cases of pregnancy and childbirth in our country.

Classification of fetal hypoxia

There are acute and chronic fetal hypoxia. The chronic form is observed for a long time and leads to pathologies in fetal development. The most common causes are diseases of the nervous, cardiovascular, endocrine systems of a pregnant woman, post-term pregnancy, multiple pregnancies, intoxication, and infectious diseases.

Acute hypoxia most often occurs during delivery. It can be caused by short or prolonged labor, premature loss of water, placental abruption, uterine rupture and other factors. Acute hypoxia requires immediate action. If she is observed at a late stage and labor has not yet begun, then doctors induce labor or perform a cesarean section.

Ventilator OXY as a means of preventing fetal hypoxia

Constant stuffiness is one of the causes of chronic hypoxia. Ventilation problems usually occur due to poorly functioning hoods and the installation of plastic windows that “seal” the room. In this case, supply ventilation will help “start” normal air exchange.

An example of such ventilation is the OXY ventilator - a compact device equipped with a fan and a set of filters. To install it, a channel is drilled in the outer wall onto which the ventilator is mounted.

The OXY ventilator is an effective means of preventing fetal hypoxia. Immediately after installation, it provides a round-the-clock supply of fresh air with the windows closed. With it, the expectant mother will not be disturbed by street noise, dirt and drafts. Thanks to the optimal oxygen content in the atmosphere of the room, you will be provided with complete, healthy sleep and rest, good health and mood.

Signs of fetal hypoxia during pregnancy

The gynecologist will be able to understand that the fetus has signs of hypoxia during the examination. The main manifestation at the initial stage will be a rapid heartbeat and increased respiratory activity. Meconium appears in the amniotic fluid.

If a child has severe hypoxia, then the heartbeat, on the contrary, will be slow. Significant oxygen deprivation leads to intracellular and tissue edema as a result of the blood condensing and plasma leaving the vascular bed. Tissue respiration is disrupted, embryo development slows down, and acidosis develops. Circulatory disorders cause tachycardia followed by bradycardia. Due to the increased fragility of the vascular walls, hemorrhages are possible.

A pregnant woman herself can identify signs of fetal hypoxia in the second and third trimester by changes in motor activity: the child behaves restlessly, moves too often and too much, and with progressive oxygen deficiency, on the contrary, practically stops moving. If such symptoms appear, you should immediately consult a doctor for diagnosis.

If chronic fetal hypoxia is suspected, doctors conduct the following examinations:

1. listening to the fetal heartbeat
2. Ultrasound, Dopplerography;
3. cardiotocography, phonocardiography of the fetus;
4. amnioscopy and amniocentesis through the cervical canal;
5. laboratory tests of blood and urine in a pregnant woman.

Degrees of hypoxia: acute and chronic

Our body cannot live without oxygen, so even a short oxygen deprivation leads to serious consequences. There are two types of hypoxia – acute and chronic.

What is the difference between them? A simple example: if a piece of food is blocked in the respiratory tract, this causes acute hypoxia. And if you live for months in a stuffy, poorly ventilated room, this causes chronic oxygen starvation.

Chronic hypoxia as a result of constant stuffiness is often the cause of malaise in adults - it leads to decreased immunity, deterioration in the quality of sleep, frequent headaches, constant fatigue and weakness.

Important! During pregnancy, prolonged stay in a stuffy room is dangerous precisely because of the risk of developing intrauterine fetal hypoxia. Therefore, doctors recommend being in the fresh air as often as possible, since they assume that all the windows in the apartment are closed and there is not enough fresh air.

The fruit is 100% dependent on the environment in which it is located. Therefore, expectant mothers need to avoid stuffiness, large crowds of people and regularly ventilate the apartment where they spend a lot of time. There is a myth that the room only needs to be ventilated for 15 minutes in the morning and evening. Ventilation should be constant, but this is not always possible due to the environment - dirt, noise, drafts, allergies.

Acute fetal hypoxia during pregnancy is the nightmare of any obstetrician. It can develop due to pathologies of intrauterine development (for example, placental abruption), or during childbirth - due to abnormalities in the birth act.

Fetal hypoxia during childbirth

Hypoxia of the newborn during childbirth can be caused both by congenital pathologies and unfavorable course of pregnancy, and by problems directly during the birth process. The main danger is oxygen starvation of the brain, which leads to its dysfunction and can even cause the death of the baby.

The baby's condition is assessed in the first minute after birth using the Apgar scale. The following indicators are assessed:

• color of the skin
• breathing rate;
• reflex activity;
• heart rate;
• muscle tone.

For each point, 0 to 2 points are given, resulting in a maximum score of 10. If 6-7 points are scored, then mild hypoxia is observed, if 4-5 points - moderate, 0-3 - severe.

The examination is repeated after 5 minutes. In newborns with mild hypoxia, which is not caused by serious pathologies, by this time the indicators return to normal.

Hypoxia in newborns and older children

Hypoxia (or oxygen starvation) is a fairly common pathology that occurs in children of all ages and especially in newborns.

In newborns, hypoxia is often provoked by diseases of the mother, which affect the intrauterine development of the child and complicate the birth process. These include problems with the circulatory system, heart failure, unhealthy lifestyle - smoking, alcohol, taking drugs prohibited during pregnancy - and much more. If a pathological birth is added to the child’s hypoxia, which arises from the mother’s illnesses, then the degree of hypoxia can increase many times.

In this article we will consider the initial manifestations of insufficient blood supply to the brain.

Damage to the cervical spine, perinatal encephalopathy, asphyxia and other diagnoses can be given to the child immediately after birth, which will be common causes of the development of cerebral hypoxia. Parents most often come to a pediatric neurologist or other specialized specialist when the child’s nervous system receives increased stress - the diagnosis is made immediately before school or in first grade. Moreover, according to experts, the number of such children today is 70-80%. The most common complaints from parents are:

• emotional lability of your child and weather dependence;
• high nervous excitability;
• speech dysfunction of varying degrees;
• difficulties with learning and concentrating;
• bad behavior;
• headaches and dizziness;
• visual impairment, etc.

Despite the fact that cerebral hypoxia as a result of vascular disorders is very often diagnosed in schoolchildren, its first symptoms can be noticed in the first year of a child’s life. Such children, literally from the first days, are characterized by increased excitability, they have sleep and appetite disturbances, increased muscle tone, and suppression of unconditioned reflexes.

The main and most common cause of hypoxia in children is birth trauma. Rapid labor, stimulation of labor, and cesarean section are a trigger for weakening one or another function of the child’s body, resulting in symptoms characteristic of vascular disorders. While moving through the birth canal, the baby's cervical region experiences enormous stress, which can cause displacement of the cervical vertebrae and lead to disruption of the blood supply to the brain.

No less common and dangerous is compression, deformation and damage to the bones of the skull. All this directly affects the membranes of the brain and the blood circulation and oxygen supply.

The nervous system, together with the muscular, skeletal, circulatory and other systems, is part of a single whole organism, and disruptions or changes in function and structure in one of them always cause failure in the others. Therefore, vascular disorders of the brain are always a complex of disorders and symptoms, characterized by individuality for each child. And if your child has some of these manifestations, it is advisable not to delay a visit to specialists.

Treatment of a child with hypoxia should always be comprehensive: the main thing in the process of treating vascular disorders is a favorable atmosphere in the family, a regime and corrective measures that contribute to the child’s recovery, observation by a neurologist, speech therapist, orthopedist and other specialists. Osteopathy has proven itself well in the treatment of hypoxia, since the osteopath, during correction, considers the child’s body as an integral system.

It is a mistake to believe that an osteopath will cure all diseases and forever relieve your child of all adaptive symptoms of vascular disorders of the brain, make him a good student and a successful person in life. Osteopathy only makes some changes, affecting the vascular and nervous systems, the child’s circulatory system and other systems. Since the most common cause of hypoxia is a traumatic injury that provokes impaired blood circulation in the brain, an osteopath must find the main source of the problem and restore these processes using gentle techniques. Osteopathic correction is especially effective in cases where the cause of the disorder lies in the displacement of the vertebrae, block of the sutures of the vault and base of the skull, or injuries of the cervical spinal column. After all, the blood supply to the brain depends on the correct location of the meninges, skull bones and vertebrae and the possibility of free micromovements. During treatment, positive dynamics are not immediately observed. An osteopath can work with both large organs, bones and muscles, and very subtle matters and not only heals them, but directs the child’s body to independent adaptation and correction of congenital and acquired disorders.

It is desirable that osteopathic treatment be combined with a complex of other therapeutic and preventive measures, including physical therapy, constant classes and exercises with the child, work on his upbringing, etc. For example, if the blood circulation in the speech areas of the brain is impaired, the child may pronounce words or letters incorrectly. With osteopathic treatment, restoration of blood supply to these areas will improve the condition of damaged neural connections, and the child’s speech apparatus will have more opportunities to adapt to the new conditions of the body. This moment will be the most fruitful if you work with the child, instilling in him the correct pronunciation. As a result of regular classes, he will learn to speak and think correctly without outside help. We can observe the same processes with disorders in physical development, psychological state, etc.

It is obvious that the mechanical consequences of injury cannot be eliminated with any medications. An osteopath has a large variety of soft manual techniques in his arsenal, which can be used to eliminate the root cause and thereby remove obstacles to good blood circulation and cerebrospinal fluid flow. And the body will then begin to work on its own, because... The self-healing process will begin.

Osteopathic sessions for children with vascular disorders of the brain are usually prescribed once a week and last no more than 30-60 minutes. The duration of the therapeutic course is selected individually in each case. As a rule, after four to five sessions it is possible to normalize the patient’s condition and create the conditions necessary for the proper development of his body. Therefore, if it is important for parents not to let mild hypoxia of their child’s brain turn into more severe forms, it is advisable to see a specialist if there are any abnormalities.

GET A FREE CONSULTATION BY PHONE

+ 7 (495) 114-14-95

Consequences of hypoxia in a newborn

A mild degree usually does not have serious consequences. Severe hypoxia can lead to damage to the central nervous system, cerebral edema, convulsions, and areflexia. Damage to the respiratory system leads to pneumopathy and pulmonary hypertension. Problems with the cardiovascular system can be heart and vascular defects.

You can tell that a newborn is suffering from hypoxia by frequent regurgitation, vomiting, and enterocolitis. The consequences of severe perinatal hypoxia are DIC syndrome and secondary immunodeficiency.

Treatment and prevention of intrauterine hypoxia

The most common causes of intrauterine hypoxia are placental insufficiency, fetal malformations, umbilical cord compression and maternal hypoxia. It is very difficult to help a fetus with hypoxia in utero - before birth you can only monitor the condition and carry out delivery in a timely manner.

One of the main recommendations for the prevention of intrauterine hypoxia for expectant mothers is to spend as much time as possible in the fresh air. Doctors recommend evening walks, preferably not in the city, where the air is polluted and the oxygen content in it is reduced, but in nature. An alternative or additional way to cope with hypoxia is to use an oxygen tank. Just a few breaths are enough to increase the oxygen level in the blood of mother and child. The cans are compact and lightweight, you can carry them with you to work or store them in your car. An additional advantage is that oxygen therapy procedures strengthen the immune system and help cope with toxicosis, relieving nausea, dizziness, and weakness.

The PRANA company offers wholesale purchase of oxygen cylinders of various sizes with delivery throughout Russia. As a manufacturer, we have set minimum prices for oxygen-containing products and guarantee the quality of cylinders.

Main causes of hypoxia

There are four main causes of oxygen deficiency in the fetus: pathologies during pregnancy (for example, a conflict of Rh factors), illnesses of the mother, her bad habits and harmful environmental influences.

Pathologies during pregnancy . Hypoxia can be caused by postmaturity, entanglement with the umbilical cord, Rh conflict between the blood of mother and child, disturbances in the development of the umbilical cord and placenta, as well as pathologies of the fetus itself:

• intrauterine trauma;
• genetic abnormalities;
• developmental defects;
• hemolytic disease.

Mom's illnesses. The range of pathologies is very wide. One of the most common causes of hypoxia in this case is iron deficiency anemia.

Oxygen deficiency in the fetus can also result from:

• pyelonephritis;
• diabetes;
• diseases of the urinary and respiratory system;
• arterial hypertension;
• endocrine diseases;
• kidney diseases;
• diseases of the immune system.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the consequences of STIs (herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, mycoplasmosis, bacterial vaginosis, candidiasis and trichomoniasis), malnutrition, exhaustion and severe toxicosis in the mother.

Drinking alcohol and smoking. Why does the mother’s bad habits often result in fetal hypoxia? It’s all about the effect that the listed substances have on the inner surface of the alveoli of the lungs.

The alveoli have a special lubricant that ensures rapid delivery of oxygen to the blood. Alcohol vapor dilutes this lubricant, causing it to perform its function worse. This is just one of many other harmful effects of drinking alcohol during pregnancy.

Smoking also provokes the development of fetal hypoxia: the tars in tobacco smoke “clog” the alveoli, due to which lubrication is not produced in the required quantity. Smoking contributes to chronic hypoxia - both for the mother and the unborn child.

Environmental factors . Living in an ecologically unfavorable area, working in a hazardous industry, or in the presence of toxic substances in the air can also cause fetal hypoxia. A similar effect is caused by constant stay in rooms with poor ventilation, when the air contains too much carbon dioxide and too little oxygen.