Birth asphyxia, Apgar score and neonatal encephalopathy.

As infant mortality rates decline steadily in South Asia, largely through a fall in post-neonatal mortality, increasing attention is turning to the perinatal period(l). Many studies in this region have demonstrated birth asphyxia to be a major cause of perinatal death(2). However, the contribution of birth asphyxia to the burden of neurodisability in developing country populations is still to be accurately defined. More recently, neuro-epidemiologists have revisited the definition of birth asphyxia and suggested that future work should focus on the clinical entity of neonatal encephalopathy (NE). In this commentary we briefly review these concepts.