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A prospective study using umbilical artery velocimetry was carried out with continuous Doppler wave forms coupled to a spectral analyser (D.F.P.C. Slous) with placement of Pourcelot's placental resistance index in 94 deliveries at term of singleton normal pregnancies. Neither the position of the patient, rupture of the membranes, epidural anaesthesia, oxytocics, Dextrofemine, nor the length of labour, change the placental resistance levels during the delivery. These remain constant and equal R = 0.51 +/- 0.10 (M +/- 2 DS) whatever the appearance of the RCF at the start of labour, during dilatation and during the delivery. We considered term as being between the 38th and the 42nd week of amenorrhea. Our results show that changes in the index of resistance in the umbilical artery do not help in assessing deliveries in normal pregnancies.

Doppler pulses or continuous flow in the umbilical artery is a technique recently used in practical obstetrics and of value particularly in screening at risk pregnancies. The authors wish to study its value as a diagnostic and prognostic tool in the special cases where ultrasound has given rise to a suggestion that there may be intra-uterine growth retardation (I.U.G.R.). In a preliminary publication they report their experience in 100 normal pregnancies so that they have obtained a control diagram. Then, working on a population of 117 pregnancies with ultrasonically diagnosed I.U.G.R. they studied the birth-weight, the early neonatal morbidity and the neonatal mortality as a function of the Pourcelot S - D/S index. They were able to separate out 63 cases of I.U.G.R. without any hypertension and 54 cases associated with hypertension. They analyse the same parameters. They then discuss first the value of the diagram they have made in comparison with other known curves, also the diagnostic and prognostic performance of the method. They conclude that there is a moderate diagnostic value in Doppler velocimetry. The prognostic value is much better because the Doppler can differentiate those case of slow growth that are going to do well against those that are going to do badly.