[Blood flow in umbilical artery in fetus with intrauterine growth retardation].

Many studies of Doppler blood flow velocimetry show an association between alteration of flow waves and adverse perinatal outcome in growth retarded fetus. In our study, 74 cases of growth retarded fetuses were evaluated with umbilical artery Doppler. Sixty-five showed the presence of diastolic flow and all of them had good perinatal outcome, regardless the score of the different indexes. On the other hand, those cases with absent (7) and reversed diastolic flow (2) were correlated with obstetric intervention, low birth weight, neonatal complications and perinatal mortality. We conclude that monitoring with umbilical artery Doppler in growth retarded fetuses is a good method to detect those who present hypoxia.