Study finds new indicator of newborn health

A new study has found that the acidity of umbilical cord blood is a good predictor for the health of a newborn and can indicate whether a baby might suffer from cerebral palsy. Researchers have suspected a link between the umbilical cord blood's acidity, as measured by pH, and newborn health, but studies had never before returned anything conclusive, reports the Los Angeles Times. According to Dr James Nielsen in an editorial that accompanied the study in the medical joural BJM, testing the acidity of umbilical cord blood will give health professionals, as well as parents, a better idea of which babies need to be closely observed during infancy. The acidity of liquids is measured by pH on a 1 to 14 scale, with 1 indicating high acidity, 14 high alkaline properties and 7 being neutral. Umbilical cord blood should be close to pH 7, but events during birth, such as the compression of the cord, can lower the pH, increasing its acidity. The researchers looked at 51 previous studies, encompassing nearly half a million children, that examined pH levels in umbilical cord blood. They found that babies whose umbilical cord blood had a low pH were 2.3 times more likely to develop cerebral palsy. The March of Dimes estimates that two to three children in every 1,000 have cerebral palsy.