Zeitschrift für Neonatalbiologie

Abstrakt

Spontaneous intestinal perforation is not associated with recent administration of prenatal betamethasone

Brian J. Rau, Marc G. Weiss, Jonathan K. Muraskas, and Carolyn Jones

Intestinal disorders in preterm infants, particularly spontaneous intestinal perforation and necrotizing enterocolitis, contribute significantly to morbidity and mortality in very low birth weight infants and have a significant impact on neonatal care and patient quality of life. In very low birth weight infants, factors that induce a systemic inflammatory response and/or submucosa thinning, including postnatal glucocorticoids and exposure to indomethacin or ibuprofen, exacerbate the development of intestinal perforation in an already vulnerable population. In this retrospective analysis, we investigated whether antenatal steroids, a glucocorticoid used to promote fetal lung maturity that is often given to mothers shortly before delivery, might be associated with the development of perforation when given shortly before delivery and the intestinal mucosa does not have sufficient time to recover. In our dataset, this did not appear to be significant. Our results also showed no categorical association between antenatal steroids and spontaneous intestinal perforation. However, we did find a significant association between smaller, more depressed infants and the development of spontaneous intestinal perforation and with concurrent sepsis.