OAK BROOK, Ill. The first researchers to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the brains of a large group of babies soon after birth found a small amount of bleeding in and around the brains of one in four babies who were delivered vaginally. The study appears in the February issue of Radiology.
"Small bleeds in and around the brain are very common in infants who are born vaginally," said John H. Gilmore, M.D., professor of psychiatry and Vice-Chair for Research and Scientific Affairs at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. "It seems that a normal vaginal birth can cause these small bleeds."
For the study, 88 asymptomatic infants, equally divided between male and female, underwent MRI between the ages of one and five weeks. Sixty-five had been delivered vaginally and 23 had been delivered by cesarean section. MR images showed that 17 (26 percent) of the babies who had been delivered vaginally had intracranial hemorrhages (ICH), or small bleeds in and around the brain. Seven infants had two or more types of ICH. Prior studies have shown a smaller incidenceapproximately 10 percentof intracranial hemorrhage associated with vaginal birth.
While ICH was significantly associated with vaginal birth, it was not dependent on prolonged duration of labor or on traumatic or assisted vaginal birth.
"In our study, neither the size of the baby or the baby's head, the length of the labor, nor the use of vacuum or forceps to assist the delivery caused the bleeds," Dr. Gilmore said. "The bleeds are probably caused by pressure on the skull during delivery."
In a newborn, the bones of the skull have not fused together, so the bones of the skull can shift and frequently overlap each other during vaginal delivery, to allow the baby's head to fit through the birth canal. This shifting can compress the brain or cause blood vessels to tear, which causes bleeding.
Most of the bleeds ide
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Contact: Maureen Morley
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Radiological Society of North America
30-Jan-2007