Neonatal outcome in patients with meconium stained liquor in a rural tertiary care hospital: A prospective observational study

Abstract

Introduction: The word meconium is derived from Greek word “meconium arion” which means like opium or poppy like substances causing sleeping like state of the fetus in mother’s womb. Meconium staining of the amniotic fluid has long been regarded as a sign of fetal distress. Fetal distress has been defined as alteration in the fetal heart rate (FHR) more commonly bradycardia and the passage of meconium in response to the underlying fetal hypoxia. Variations in FHR, passage of meconium in the amniotic fluid, pathological or abnormal CTG and decreased fetal scalp blood PH are strong indicators of fetal distress. As meconium stained amniotic fluid is associated with lots of adverse outcome of fetus and has long been considered to be a bad predictor of fetal outcome so this observational study was undertaken to find out the correlation between pregnancy and immediate fetal outcome in meconium stained liquor to see the babies needed for immediate resuscitation and improve the fetal outcome in form of perinatal morbidity and mortality.Aims and Objectives: To determine the fetal outcome in patients with meconium stained liquor during labour.Materials and Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted in Obstetrics and Gynaecology department of our institution from January 2019 to June 2019 and study population included cases of meconium stained liquor during labor and their fetal outcome.The inclusion criteria were women in labor with- term pregnancy (>37 weeks gestation), cephalic presentation, live singleton normal pregnancy. Exclusion criteria were- pregnant women in labour with not knowing last menstrual date, eclampsia, antepartum hemorrhage, intrauterine fetal death, congenital malformation, pre-existing maternal heart or lung disease, presentations other than cephalic.Results: The results of fetal outcome was analysed statistically using SPSS version 19. The Chi Square test was applied between Grades of Meconium and APGAR Score. P-value< 0.05 which was statistically significant.Conclusion: Meconium stained liquor alone is not assosiated with an adverse neonatal outcome, 86% of babies remained asymptomatic. Increasing grade of MSL is associated with increased adverse outcome.