Perinatal asphyxia: assessing its causal role and timing

Perinatal asphyxia, whether, prenatal, intrapartum, or neonatal is thought, to be a significant contributor to newborn mobidity and mortality as well as long-term neurological deficits. Development of an intrapartum tool/test that can reliably identify and discriminate between varying degrees of fetal acidemia and suggest whether it is respiratory or metabolic in nature would be highly desirable. This article critically reviews the avallable experience with the currently avallable monitoring techniques and the significance of abnormallties of fetal and intrapartum measurements with respect to the predictive value of the observations avallable to the clinician.