Neonatal spesis

A 15-year survey of maternal mortality in a large urban hospital revealed an overall rate of 2.95 deaths per 10,000 pregnancies (3.44 per 10,000 live births), representing 31 maternal deaths among approximately 105,000 deliveries and spontaneous and therapeutic abortions. This rate showed marked improvement during the 15-year period, ie, 6.56 per 10,000 pregnancies for the first 5 years as compared to only 1.37 per 10,000 pregnancies for the last 10 years. In contrast to the classic triad of causes of maternal death--toxemia, hemorrhage, and spesis--the principal cause of death in this series was amniotic fluid embolism...

The limulus amebocyte lysate test for endotoxin was done on samples of blood from 22 well babies and 33 neonates in an intensive-care nursery. The objective was to determine whether falsely positive test results occurred in samples from newborn infants during acquisition of usual bowel flora. One neonate had a transiently positive limulus amebocyte lysate test; he had clinical signs of spesis, but no bacteremia could be documented. Unlike the nitroblue tetrazolium test, the limulus amebocyte lysate test does not appear to be regularly positive in neonates...