Trends of Oxygen Saturation of Newborns after Birth from Northern India

Abstract

Aim: 1) To present the percentiles of oxygen saturation for newborns from Northern Indian set-up and to compare it with the reference range provided. 2) To analyze and compare the progression of oxygen saturation in term and preterm newborns.

Background: Even after knowing that preterm newborns may have different physiological requirements, they are being treated as similar entity as term newborns. No separate reference oxygen saturation ranges are available for them. Also little data is available about the percentiles of oxygen saturations for newborns in Indian set-up.

Material Methods: This was a Prospective Observational study done over a period of one year at a tertiary care hospital. 500 newborns with gestational age of 28-42 weeks, requiring routine care were enrolled. Oxygen saturation readings were recorded separately for term and preterm newborns till 10 minutes of life.

Results: SpO2 values of preterm newborns rises slowly as compared to term newborns. It took a mean time of 7.77±1.45 min (IQR of 6.3-9 minutes) for term newborns and 8.78 ± 0.97 min (IQR of 8.3-9.3 minutes) for preterm newborns to reach ≥ 85% SpO2. The 3rd, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th and 97th percentiles of oxygen saturation have been calculated for both term and preterm newborns from birth till 10 minutes of life.

Conclusion: Preterm newborns should be treated as separate entity from term newborns to keep them safe from hazards of oxygen toxicity. This study provides the reference percentiles of oxygen saturation for term and preterm newborns from Northern India separately.