Intraventricular and subependymal haemorrhage in infants dying within 10 hours of birth.

A group of 103 infants was studied who were appropriate for gestational age (AGA), born at less than 36 weeks gestation, and died within 10 hours of birth. Intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH) had occurred in about one quarter of the extremely small, premature infants (28 weeks) within 5 hours of birth, but was rare in infants greater than 28 weeks gestation. The incidence of subependymal haemorrhage (SEH) was relatively high in babies who died within 5 hours of birth but IVH was more common in those who lived more than 5 hours. There was no relationship between the clinical events studied and the presence of IVH or SEH in the whole group of cases dying within 10 hours of birth, but the babies who died by 5 hours after birth had a high incidence of breech delivery and very low Apgar scores.