[Retarded fetal growth. Attempt at an etiological-pathogenetic and clinical classification].

The "small-for-dates" babies are not a single entity but a heterogenous group. The condition has been attributed to many possible causes and mechanisms that many induce "poor fetal growth" in utero. Poor intrauterine fetal growth (P.

[Alcoholic embryopathy].

The experiences hitherto made and the clinical reports speak for a causal connection between chronic alcohol abuse of pregnant women and an intrauterine fetal lesion, the prognosis of which is not favourable. The feature of the alcohol embryopathy mainly distinguishes itself by prenatal and postnatal disturbances of growth, cerebral lesions, signs of the craniofacial dysmorphism, dysmorphous signs at the extremities and at the skeleton, cardiovascular dysplasias, anomalies at the genitals as well as abnormal furrows of the fingers and atypical dermatoglyphes. Occurrence and degree of severity of the malformation syndrome depend on the quantity of alcohol taken, the duration of the influence of alcohol, the phase of the disease of the mother, the moment of the alcohol exposition during pregnancy and a genetically conditioned different activity of the alcohol hydrogenase.

[Alcoholic embryopathy (author's transl)].

Experience so far accumulated as well as clinical reports are likely to suggest the existence of a causal relationship between chronic abuse of alcohol by pregnant women and intrauterine fetal damage, usually with poor prognosis. The pathological pattern of alcoholic embryopathy is characterised primarily by inhibition of prenatal and postnatal growth, cerebral damage, cranio-facial, skeletal, and extremity dysmorphism, cardiovascular dysplasia, abnormality of genital organs and of palmar crease, and atypical dermatoglyphics. Incidence and severity of malformations were found to depend on quantitative alcohol consumption, length of exposure to alcohol, phase of the mother's alcohol disease at the time of pregnancy, timing of exposure to alcohol during pregnancy, and gentically differentiated activities of alcohol-dehydrogenase.

[Development of intensive monitoring in obstetrics].

As early as about the turn of the century the causes for the discharge of the meconium under labour were studied and the attempt was made to record alterations of the cardiac sound under the influence of labour pain as well as the behaviour of the fetal heart by means of the electrocardiogram. In the development of obstetrics certain stages can be observed which in the past few decades entailed a great many changes, such as changing from delivery at home to delivery at hospital, parasitological clarification of intrauterine infections and the revelation of the pathogenesis of the Mhn. Studies of the physiology of intrauterine respiration, direct measurements of the oxygene pressure in the fetal blood represent the base for the future development of perinatal medicine.

[Radioimmunological determination of unconjugated plasma estradiol and estriol after administration of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate in late pregnancy].

In 16 normal and pathologic pregnancies we carried out the dehydroepiandrosterone-sulphate loading test by injection of 50 mg DHEA-S-Na intravenously. The plasma concentrations of unconjugated estradiol and estriol were measured by radioimmun-assay. The level of estradiol increased continuously, rising to a maximum 60 min after the injection.