Umbilical artery catheterization in newborns. V. A clinical follow-up study.

The long-term effects of umbilical artery catheterization were studied in forty-nine children. At the age of about 18 months their gross motor and neurological development, peripheral circulation, and growth of the legs were investigated. The infants with catheter-related thrombo-embolism in the legs diagnosed in the neonatal period with the aid of angiography and investigated by plethysmography were re-examined once or more during the first year of life by strain-guage plethysmography. One child who showed total occlusion of the iliac artery as newborn, had a difference in calf circumference at the 18-month examination of 1.5 cm, the only finding in this study related to catheter-associated thrombosis. In infants with neonatal thrombo-embolism in the legs the initial crural difference in systolic blood pressure diminished slowly, and at 12 months a blood-pressure difference of more than 10 mmHg remained in only one infant.