Single umbilical artery. Correlation of clinical status and umbilical cord histology.

Although numerous reports are available concerning infants who have single umbilical artery, there are no studies that correlate the incidence of congenital malformations or prognosis of such infants with the presence or absence of an atrophied artery in their associated umbilical cords. For this reason, we studied 48 infants who have single umbilical artery. No significant differences were detected in congenital malformations or neonatal mortality between infants with atrophy of one of their arteries and infants with arterial aplasia.