Chapter 5 - Birth and the Newborn's Readiness for Life

Question 1

What are the 3 stages of childbirth?

Answer 1

1: child’s head moves towards cervix
2: babies head moves towards birth canal

3: head begins crowning
- babies head emerges, body follows through, placenta comes loose and is born

Question 2

What is the APGAR test?

Answer 2

A = appearance (colour)
P = pulse
G = grimace (reflex irritability)
A = active (muscle tone)
R = respiratory

score from 0-2 in each category

taken at 1 and 5 minutes of birth

scores 7 or above are good
scores 4 or below require medical intervention

Question 3

What is the NBAS?

Answer 3

neonatal behavioural assessment scale

more subtle measure than APGAR

• administered few days after birth
• measures reflexes and response to stimuli

Question 4

What are examples of survival reflexes and primitive reflexes?

Answer 4

survival = breathing, swallowing
- required for sustaining life

primitive = stepping, palmar
- present at the beginning of life but will disappear within first year

Question 5

What is a reflex?

Answer 5

involuntary, automatic response to a stimulus

Question 6

What are the 2 types of low birth weight babies?

Answer 6

preterm infants
- 3+ weeks early

small for date

• born close to due date but grew slowly in the womb
• higher risk than preterm

Question 7

What weight is considered to be low birth weight?

Answer 7

under 5.5 lbs (2500 g)

Question 8

What are some causes of low birth weight?

Answer 8

smoking/drinking/drug use
poor diet
lack of prenatal care
stress
multiple births

Question 9

What are short-term consequences of low birth weight?

Answer 9

50% mortality rate if less than 2 lbs

affects brain development

decrease in surfactin in the lungs leads to respiratory distress syndrome

isolation leads to kangaroo care
- not getting enough important physical/skin-to-skin touch

Question 10

What are the long-term consequences of low birth weight?

Answer 10

depends on post-natal environment
- low SES groups do worse intellectually

worse learning and emotional difficulties

Question 11

What is the range of infant consciousness states?

Answer 11

regular sleep
irregular sleep
drowsiness
alert inactivity
alert activity
crying

Question 12

What is REM sleep?

Answer 12

rapid eye movement

50% of newborn sleep

25-30% of 6 month olds sleep

Question 13

Why do newborns spend so much time in REM sleep?

Answer 13

autostimulation theory

brains that have great stimulation need to have a lot of REM sleep
- babies sleep 18+ hours when born, but as brain gets better at building connections they need less sleep