INTRACRANIAL HEMORRHAGE IN THE NEWBORN

Abstract

Cerebral hemorrhage in the newborn is unquestionably of common occurrence. The statistics from various clinics differ a great deal, depending on the care and the method of observation. Careful postmortem examination of stillborn babies and infants dying within the first few days of life indicates a very high percentage of lesions of the brain attributable to trauma during delivery. Ford¹concludes that at least one third of all deaths occurring during the first two weeks of life are due to birth injury. The routine examination of the spinal fluid of a large number of newborn infants studied consecutively reveals the fact that approximately 12 per cent of all infants exhibit blood in the spinal fluid.²Fortunately, only a small group of these children show clinical evidence of cerebral damage. The prognosis of intracranial hemorrhage in those infants surviving the initial shock of injury is a problem about which