Pulmonary Hemorrhage of the Newborn

Abstract

Pulmonary hemorrhage of the newborn (PHN) is a common severe and critical disease in newborn infants, exhibiting complicated etiologies, rapid progression, and a high mortality rate [1, 2]. It was reported that the incidence rate of PHN was 1–12‰ of live births, increasing to 50‰ in infants with high-risk factors [3]. The common risk factors included premature birth, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), severe birth asphyxia, hypoxia, oxygen toxicity, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), RDS, MAS, hypotension, severe infection or sepsis, polycythemia, mechanical ventilation, multiple births, male gender, and surfactant therapy [1]. We observed that the primary causes of PHN were severe intrauterine infection (33.3%), severe birth asphyxia (21.1%), and RDS (21.1%), accounting for more than 75% of the patients. MAS and severe postnatal infection accounted for 25% of these patients. PHN often occurred within the first several days after birth. In this study, 71.4% of the cases developed PHN within several hours to 24 h after birth, 80.4% developed PHN within 3 days of life, 89.5% developed PHN within 7 days of life, and only 10.5% developed PHN between 1 and 2 weeks after birth, meaning that nearly 90% of the NPH cases occurred within the first week of life.