Histopathological Changes in Placenta during Fetal Asphyxia

Abstract

Background: Neonatal asphyxia is state of respiratory insufficiency in the newborn immediately after birth, clinically characterized by prolonged fetal asphyxia, with prolonged fetal asphyxia, with prolonged respiratory failure or prolonged respiratory arrhythmia, and is classified as cerebral asphyxia, pulmonary asphyxia, and cardiac asphyxia. Neonatal asphyxia is disruption of metabolic processes caused by hypoxic conditions of the fetal-placental system.
The Aim: We aimed to investigate the histopathological changes of the placenta during fetal asphyxia. Methods: The study population included 237 placentas from single pregnant women who had been delivered for the past five years. Among them, 110 gravidas who underwent emergency caesarean section due to fetal asphyxia were included as the study group and 127 gravidas who delivered normal without fetal asphyxia were included as the control group. After tissue sections from the placenta were obtained, H-E stained specimens were prepared according to the conventional tissue sampling technique, and the appearance was calculated by observing inflammatory changes as indicated by congestion, edema, hemorrhage, and infiltration of inflammatory cells and observing degenerative changes with the index of degeneration, atrophy, necrosis, and defect under ×400 light microscope view.  Results and Conclusions: The histopathological changes of the placenta during fetal asphyxia are as follows. The percentage of regressive changes in the placenta during fetal asphyxia was degeneration 89.1%, atrophy 70.0%, necrosis 53.6% and defect 37.3%, and the percentage of inflammatory changes was congestion 53.6%, edema 30.0%, hemorrhage 59.1% and inflammatory cell infiltration 47.3%. The more severe the severity of fetal asphyxia, the more severe the histopathological changes of the placenta.