Fetal Assessment of the Myocardium and Evaluation of the Neonate

Among the millions of infants with various degrees of perinatal asphyxia each year, the question how to identify those that without supportive measures will die or develop brain injury remains unanswered. The very small population of infants with severe compromise and requiring advanced delivery room resuscitation and therapeutic hypothermia represents only the tip of the iceberg of infants that die or survive with neurological impairment. Thus, the majority of infants with a poor outcome are difficult to distinguish from those with a healthy survival. This challenge persists because currently used markers of perinatal asphyxia are inadequate and unspecific. Better methods to diagnose and monitor hypoxia-ischemia are called for.

The project will characterize in detail both normal and failed (resulting in perinatal asphyxia) transition from fetal to neonatal life. We will study the fetal/neonatal heart throughout perinatal transition, as a continuum and a single physiological entity. This cross-disciplinary approach is groundbreaking as it challenges current clinical practice, knowledge and research. Innovative use of existing technology contributes to further exploring the heart to provide prognostic information and guide supportive therapy.

The target group is fetuses and newborn infants with mild to moderate perinatal asphyxia, i.e., "uncomplicated" infants at birth that later die or develop brain injury.

Our research question is whether immediate neonatal electrocardiogram (ECG) corresponds to fetal ECG as monitored by cardiotocography (CTG) with ST-segment analysis (STAN), and whether neonatal ECG morphology differentiates between infants with mild to moderate perinatal asphyxia and healthy infants. Umbilical cord blood biomarkers, clinical outcomes and secondarily, cardiac output will be used to answer the research question.

For the Epi-FOMO study arm - maternal blood samples during labor will be drawn from an arterial line. The Epi-FOMO participants are a subset of those included in FAME-n, and we will include an equal number of delivering women with and without epidural analgesia. The hypothesis is that epidural analgesia affects maternal breathing and gas exchange, which in turn affects fetal gas exchange and the condition of the newborn infant. We believe that measurement of amniotic fluid lactate during labor may serve as "proof of concept" that maternal respiration during labor modifies the risk of perinatal asphyxia.