Left ventricular echocardiographic nomograms in a cohort of normal term neonates in Ibadan

Background: Previous studies on neonatal cardiac dimensions in Africa were cross-sectional, evaluating mainly children with very few newborns. This study was carried out in a cohort of normal newborns with normal maternal cardiotocograms, systemic finding, and pulse oximetry at birth.Materials and Methods: One-hundred and twenty term normal newborns were recruited from March 2015 to December 2015 from the Adeoyo Maternity Teaching Hospital and the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria. The mothers were monitored during labor using cardiotocography 7 fetal/maternal monitor to ensure that the baby suffered no perinatal stress. Pulse oximetry was also done at birth. Left ventricular dimension in diastole, left ventricular posterior wall thickness in diastole, left ventricular dimension in systole, and left ventricular posterior wall thickness in systole and aortic dimension were measured at birth and weekly till 28 days using M-mode according to American Society of Echocardiography.Results: All mothers recruited had spontaneous vaginal delivery with normal cardiotocographic measurements. Appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, and respiration scores ranged between 7–8 at 1 min and 8–10 at 5 min. There were 60 (50%) males and 60 (50%) females. All of the left ventricular measurements showed a linear increase in their values with age. Nomograms have been plotted based on age using 95% confidence interval.Conclusion: This study has shed some light on the possibility of deriving normal values of echocardiographic dimensions for this age group and derived nomogram. This has added to the already existing data on the nomograms of the newborn, especially in the Nigerian Newborn.