All issues > Volume 30(1); 1987

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1987;30(1):26-34. Published online January 31, 1987.

Meconium Staining; A Five Year Retrospective Review.

Kei Hag Son¹, Kyun Woo Lee¹, Hong Bae Kim¹, Soom Ok Byun¹, Ji Sub Oh¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital, Pusan, Korea

Abstract

Among a total of 15,250 newborns delivered at wallace memorial Baptist Hospital in a 5 year period from January 1980 to December 1984, a clinical study was done regarding meconium stained babies. The results were summarized as follows; 1) The incidence of meconium staining was 10.94% (1,669 babies). 2) Most of the meconium group (95.08%) had a birth weight exceeding 2,500 grams. The incidence of meconium staining by birth weight was 4.71% in babies weighing 2,000 grams or less, 16.2% in babies weighing over 4,000 grams, compared to 9.89% in babies weighing 2,501-3,000 gm. 3) Most of the meconium group (93.17%) had a gestational period over 38 weeks. The incidence of meconium staining by gestational age was 6.2% in those less than 37 weeks and 24.36% in those over 42 weeks, compared to 10.54% in those bom during a 38-42 week gestation. 4) The incidence of meconium staining related to labor duration was 12.82% in the group laboring 13-24 hours and 17.53% in those laboring over 24 hours compared to 7.3% in those delivering within 4 hours of the onset of labor. 5) The incidence of meconium staining was higher in primiparous (13.45%) than multiparous (8.04%)mothers. 6) The mean one-and five-minutes apgar scores were lower in the meconium group (7.5 ±2.6, 6.7 ±2.0) than in the non-meconium stained group (8.1 ±1.6, 8.4 ±1.4). 7) The incidence of meconium staining by mode of delivery was 4.88% in the cesarean section delivery group, 19.12% in the vacuum delivery group and 16.67% in breech delivery group compared to 11.78% in spontaneous vaginal delivery group. 8) The incidence of combined perinatal and maternal problems (e. g. eclampsia, pre-eclampsia, diabetes mellitus, chorioamnionitis, etc.) was higher in the meconium group than in the non-meconium stained group. 9) The neonatal death rate was higher in the meconium group (2.94%) than in the control group (1.02%) Among all newborns, the incidence of meconium aspiration syndrome was 1.86% and of these,29.03% died.

Keywords :Meconium stained babies.