Perinatal Asphyxia

Perinatal asphyxia is considered a complicated newborn health problem. Due to this reason, the condition has resulted in an increased proportion of newborn mortalities in the United States. Perinatal asphyxia can be defined as a range of disorders that subsequently occur to the infant’s oxygen deprivation two weeks after the delivery. Thus, the significant syndrome involves the brain. However, most other organs can also be affected. This document will focus on the risk factors allied with perinatal asphyxia, limit the likely reasons for the condition, and evaluate the health status of post-natal and pre-natal mothers.

Perinatal asphyxia can be associated with several complex ranges of risk factors which vary based on the industrialized and non-industrialized states. However, in the US, the risk factors are categorized depending on whether they are before birth (antepartum), during delivery (intrapartum), or after childbirth (post-partum) (Weber et al., 2021). These risk factors include low birth weight, multiple gestation, high birth weight, preterm delivery, fetal distress, and resuscitation.

According to research conducted by medical scholars in the US, several factors are likely to cause the result of perinatal asphyxia. This includes birth weight which plays a significant role in perinatal asphyxia. The research indicated that children born of low birth weight were 6.9 times more likely to be affected by the condition than those with the average weight, which is usually above 2500g (Almeida et al., 2017). However, the weight was associated with maternal complications like diabetes mellitus and hypertension during the pre-conception. On the other hand, the preterm offspring were 2.2 times more likely to be asphyxiated than the term infants. This is because preterm infants are considered more susceptible to ischemia due to the formation of an incomplete blood-brain barrier (Sadler et al., 2016). Another reason could be that these infants experience several sicknesses, including immaturity, especially lung immaturity, which results in respirational failure.

Meconium-stained mums had a crucial relationship with perinatal asphyxia. Those with the condition are 7.9 times more dangerous than those not suffering from the disease (Molavi et al., 2019). There are, however, very few cases of meconium aspiration syndrome that occur among expectant women. Lastly, Antepartum hemorrhage has an essential association with perinatal asphyxia, whereby mothers with this condition were 12 times at higher risk compared to those not suffering from the disease. This is because the antepartum bleeding reduced the blood flow from the mother to the placenta, thus resulting in hypoxemia in the fetus (Annink et al., 2019). As a result, this could result in perinatal asphyxia if there is a postponement in the delivery or transfusion to the mother.

Concerning the health status of pre-natal and post-natal mothers, pregnancy care consists of the pre-natal stage, which is usually before birth, and the post-partum healthcare, which is after birth (Solevåg, Schmölzer, & Cheung, 2016). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mothers need to be involved in training and treatment during this period. This will help ensure that their pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, and labor, are conducted more healthily, thus providing a healthy life for both the baby and the mother. The importance of this is that it encourages the women to deliver with a skilled birth attendant. This, in turn, would facilitate quality intrapartum and post-natal care during the third stage of labor.

Perinatal asphyxia is a condition that has resulted in a high mortality rate of infants in the United States. Several risk factors cause the disease during the antepartum, intrapartum, and post-partum stages. Therefore, expectant mothers need to be trained and treated during the pre-natal and post-natal stages to prevent their infants from suffering from conditions such as perinatal asphyxia.