Low cerebral blood flow in hypotensive perinatal distress

Hypoxic brain injury is the most important neurological problem in the neonatal period and accounts for more neurological deficits in children than any other lesion. The neurological deficits are notably mental retardation, epilepsy and cerebral palsy. The pathogenesis has hitherto been poorly understood. Arterial hypoxia has been taken as the obvious mechanism but this does not fully explain the patho-anatomical findings. In the present investigation we have examined the arterial blood pressure and the cerebral blood flow in eight infants a few hours after birth. The 133Xe clearance technique was used for the cerebral blood flow measurements. The study confirmed that perinatal distress may be associated with low arterial blood pressure, and it was shown that cerebral blood flow is very low, 20 ml/100 g/min or less, in hypotensive perinatal distress. It is concluded that cerebral ischaemia plays a crucial role in the development of perinatal hypoxic brain injury.