Cerebral Palsy is 25 or More of Hypoxia Index and No Cerebral Palsy is 24 or Less of Index in Fetal Monitoring

Abstract

Fetal outcome was ominous if fetal heart rate (FHR) was late deceleration (LD) in the past, while 3 connected typical LDs were normal, and repeated LDs for 50 min were heavy fetal brain damage. Also, LD is defined as LD when it is repeated for 15 minutes. As the fetus is damaged by repeated hypoxic decelerations followed by cerebral palsy, but not by its late appearing in LD, novel fetal hypoxia index (HI) is the sum of all deceleration durations (min) divided by the lowest FHR (bpm) and multiplied by 100 in fetal monitoring. The hypoxia index was 25 or more in all of 6 cerebral palsy cases, while it was 24 or less in all 16 cases of no cerebral palsy. As error probability is almost zero in the chi2 test of hypoxia index, no cerebral palsy is decided when the hypoxia index is 24 or less, while it is cerebral palsy, if hypoxia index is 25 or more. The hypoxia index is adopted to all FHR decelerations and bradycardia, as hypoxia index does not evaluate the late appearing of deceleration, instead of past subjective deceleration pattern diagnosis in fetal monitoring.