Link seen between gastric suction at birth and risk of intestinal disorders

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 31 May 2004 - 3:00 PDT

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Gastric suction at birth may lead to the development of long-term visceral hypersensitivity and cognitive hypervigilance, according to results of a new study. This may lead to functional intestinal disorders in later life.

In a matched case-control study, Dr. K. J. S. Anand, from the Arkansas Children's Hospital, in Little Rock, and colleagues tested the hypothesis that noxious stimulation at birth may increase the long-term risk of developing psychosomatic or functional disorders in later life.

The team retrieved birth records of 1100 children who had a birth weight of at least 2500 g and who had a perinatal complication or experienced birth asphyxia. One hundred eight infants hospitalized for functional intestinal symptoms were identified and compared with 116 unaffected sibling controls.

Overall, the investigators found that functional intestinal symptoms occurred more frequently among the 1110 subjects than in the general population, at 9.5% and 3.4%, respectively.

Gastric suction at birth had occurred in 24 of the 108 cases (22.2%) and 13 of the 116 sibling controls (11.2%). No differences in perinatal trauma or birth asphyxia were seen between the two groups.

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