The Normal Newborn

Abstract

The ‘normal’ newborn has been described as a product of forty weeks’ gestation, born to a young healthy mother after a spontaneous vertex delivery. The age of the mother, parity, birth order, maternal health during pregnancy, quality of antenatal care, type of delivery, instrumentation and drug administration during labour are some of the factors which determine the physical well-being and ability for extrauterine adjustment in the newborn. In practice it has been found that the size of the newborn has an important bearing on his potential for growth and development and, by usage, has become the common criterion for classification of normal newborns. The gestational age is a reliable yard-stick for judging maturity especially when considered together with the birth weight; however, in most developing societies the length of the gestational period is difficult to assess with any accuracy and so in most cases the weight at birth may be the only available parameter for classification besides clinical observations.