Adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisol levels in term infants born with meconium-stained amniotic fluid

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of ACTH (Corticotropin), published as an observational study.

To evaluate cord blood concentrations of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol in well term infants born with and without meconium-stained amniotic fluid (MSAF) and term infants born with MSAF who experienced respiratory distress (RD).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 18 infants taking part.

PubMed tags the participants as both men and women.

Fifty-four term infants were enrolled in the study in three groups: group 1 consisted of 18 well infants who were born with clear amniotic fluid, group 2 had 18 well infants born with MSAF, and group 3 had 18 infants born with MSAF who experienced RD in the first 24 h of age.

How the Study Was Run

This was a prospective observational study.

Cord blood ACTH and cortisol concentrations were measured in infants born in all three groups.

Groups 2 and 3 had serum ACTH and cortisol levels re-measured at 22-26 h of age.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Adrenocorticotropic Hormone, Amniotic Fluid, Fetal Blood, Hydrocortisone, Meconium, Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Newborn and Term Birth.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is an observational study of ACTH (Corticotropin) in 18 infants.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2014 (Journal of perinatal medicine), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the ACTH (Corticotropin) compound page, all human trials.