Might efforts to increase birthweight in undernourished women do more harm than good?
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to I Chalmers.
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This article describes one approach to assessing the effects of perinatal care--that adopted by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit in Oxford, England. The unit's research has been based primarily on a combination of simple, descriptive analyses of observational data and statistically robust analyses of evidence derived from randomized controlled trials.
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The incidence of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) among singleton infants of Cardiff residents was greater during 1970-4 than in the preceding five years. This was consistent with changes in the distribution of gestational age and birth weight. Case fatality rates among infants with RDS fell only slightly during the period examined. Detailed examination of secular trends during 1965-75 suggested (a) that increased use of elective delivery without assessment of pulmonary maturity increases the risk of RDS, and (b) that innovations in the management of RDS during the early 1970s cannot be assumed to have had widespread impact on case fatality rates.
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We studied data on firstborn singleton infants born to primiparous Cardiff residents during the decade 1965-1974. Both mean birth weight and gestational age at delivery fell appreciably during 1965-74. Changes in maternal age, height, smoking habits, or history of abortion did not explain these findings. The increased proportion of infants weighing less than 2500 g may be explained by the overall reduction in gestational age at delivery, which, in turn, may have resulted from increased use of elective delivery during the second quinquennium.
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Trends in management and outcome of pregnancy in Cardiff residents from 1965 to 1973 were reviewed. The mean age and parity of parturients fell. Hospital delivery became almost universal, monitoring the fetus during pregnancy was introduced, and induction and acceleration of labour became commonplace. These developments were not associated with any striking change in either the total perinatal death rate or the timing or cause of perinatal death. Possibly a real change in perinatal mortality between 1965 and 1973 was masked by random fluctuation of small numbers, or possibly factors peculiar to the Cardiff population prevented a decrease in perinatal mortality that would otherwise have resulted from improved medical care. Only by large-scale randomised trials can the true value of induction and other medical developments be assessed.
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