A prospective study of the oxytocin challenge test and newborn neurobehavioral outcome.

In a prospective study, infants of high-risk mothers delivered over a 1-year period were evaluated by clinical, biochemical, and behavioral methods. Of 67 newborns whose mothers had oxytocin challenge tests (OCTs), 54 were delivered after negative tests, and 13 after positive tests. Infants with positive OCTs had poor state organization and reflexive performance when compared with negative-OCT babies. These infants also showed evidence of intrauterine malnutrition, but did not have any greater asphyxiation than the negative OCT group. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a positive OCT implies pathological placental respiratory insufficiency, which may be superimposed, in many instances, on impairment in utero of the placenta's nutritional function. The clinical manifestation of such dysfunction is the alteration in subtle neonatal neurobehavior.