[Study of intrauterine growth of normal newborn infants]

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the intrauterine normal growth profile and its variations. To draw an intrauterine growth standard at the maternity ward of Hospital Universitário Antonio Pedro (UFF-RJ) by studying the variables of weight, length, cephalic perimeter and ponderal index, at birth, from single foetus pregnancies. We compare those curves with those in other national research works, as well as with the classical one by Lubchenco.METHODS: The starting number of 1566 live births which happened between April, 1992 and September, 1993 was cut down to 1031 due to exclusions resulting from interfering factors of foetus growth (Hypertensive Disease of Pregnancy, smoking mother, chronic arterial hypertension and major malformations). We also excluded from analysis those foetus of mothers who could not remember the date of their last period or when it was discordant in more than a week from Dubowtiźs score.RESULTS: Comparing this standard of intrauterine growth to those chosen in literature, the present values were similar to other national curves that exclude intrauterine growth interfering factors. Comparing our curve with the classical Lubchencós curve, we observed higher mean values at lower gestational ages than the ones in Denvers study, and lower late desaceleration of the ponderal gain in the present one.The Ponderal Indexes of the present study have higher mean values compared to the ones in other studies, denoting, perhaps, higher prevalence of type I, or symmetric, intrauterine growth retard pattern.CONCLUSION: This study proposes a standard which is adequate to the assessment of intrauterine growth of similar populations.