Clinical Chemistry - 1997 NACB Symposium - Evaluation of the newborn's blood gas status - This paper discusses considerations for interpretation of blood gases in the newborn period. Blood gas measurements and noninvasive estimations provide important information about oxygenation. Its determined that Blood gas measurements and complementary, noninvasive monitoring techniques provide the clinician with information essential to patient assessment, therapeutic decision making, and prognostication. Blood gas measurements are as important for ill newborn infants as for other critically ill patients, but unique challenges are provided by rapidly changing physiology, difficult access to arterial and mixed venous sampling sites, and small blood volumes.
NIH PubMed Central Archives of Disease in Childhood - Umbilical venous blood ph: a useful aid in the diagnosis of asphyxia at birth. Umbilical venous blood, and umbilical arterial blood pH, PO2, PCO2, and base excess were determined in 453 term infants at birth. The results indicate that umbilical venous blood pH, and umbilical arterial blood pH are significantly related to each another.
Canadian study to examine the roles of clinical risk scoring, electronic fetal heart monitoring and fetal blood gas and acid-base assessement in the prediction of intrapartum fetal asphyxia in term pregnancies. The study concluded that although fetal heart rate patterns will not discriminate all asphyxial exposures, continuous fetal heart rate monitoring supplemented by fetal blood gas and acid-base assessment can be a useful fetal assessment paradigm for intrapartum fetal asphyxia
obgyn.net - Article - Cord blood gases to determine umbilical artery acid-base analysis - Charts and values available on this site outlining Normal fetal cord blood pH and gas values and abnormal fetal cord pH and gas values.
NIH PubMed Abstract of University of Maryland study reviewing the physiology of acid-base balance and fetal gas exchange as well as the current scientific understanding of the role of intrauterine asphyxia in the pathophysiology of neonatal excephalopathy and cerebral palsy.