Clinical determination of maturity of newborn infants: comparison of some simplified methods.

A total of 508 infants were examined at three hospitals in Nigeria to evaluate the relative accuracy of maturity determination using 6 abbreviated and simplified methods in an African population. For each infant, total maturity scores were computed for each of the 6 methods and correlated with gestational age by simple regression analysis to construct regression lines of gestational age on total maturity score. The regression line for the 6 methods were used to determine the maturity of a prospective cohort of 262 infants and to evaluate accuracy of maturity determination with the Dubowitz methods as gold standard. Three simplified methods had comparable accuracy with the Dubowitz scoring system. This probably implies that simplified methods, developed from local populations, may not be universally applicable and reliable. Indeed, the method with the highest accuracy in this study was developed originally from an African population.