CHANGES IN STATIC AND DYNAMIC SKIN FOLD MEASUREMENTS IN THE 1ST 60 HOURS OF LIFE - HIGHER VALUES FOLLOWING CESAREAN DELIVERY

Infants born by cesarean section (CS) have been reported to have incre ased intracellular and total body water and have a slower postnatal de cline in cell water content compared to vaginally delivered infants. T hese findings support the hypothesis that delivery-related changes in water compartmentalization will result in postnatal differences in tis sue compressibility. In order to test this hypothesis, static and dyna mic skin fold thicknesses (SFTs) were obtained in 60 healthy, term, ap propriate for gestational age infants between 1 and 60 h of life. Thir ty infants were delivered vaginally and 30 by CS. Midtriceps, subscapu lar and abdominal skin folds were measured twice daily during the firs t 3 days of life. There were no differences between groups in birth we ight, length, head circumference, gestational age, sex or ponderal ind ex. Our results showed that static SFTs were significantly greater in CS than in vaginally delivered infants at birth and remained so throug hout the study period. In both groups, static SFTs increased while wei ght decreased over time. At birth, dynamic SFTs were significantly gre ater in infants delivered by CS. We speculate that skin fold differenc es between CS and vaginal deliveries may reflect a different dynamic o f perinatal body water distribution. The mechanism underlying the para doxical increase in static SFTs in both groups is unknown.