Prediction of a chronobiologic index for neonatal cardiovascular risk estimation

Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) of 127 newborns were automatically monitored at about 30-min intervals for 48 h starting shortly after birth. Circadian characteristics and descriptive statistics for the three circulatory variables were used in a multiple regression analysis to compute a linear prediction function for a cardiovascular risk score. This discrete variable was obtained for each neonate on the basis of the presence or absence of overt cardiovascular disease, elevated BP, or obesity across two generations. Results indicate that the best model includes the circadian amplitudes of systolic and diastolic BP and the circadian ranges of systolic BP and HR. The results provide a neonatal index of cardiovascular risk to be used for the evaluation of the effects on the newborn of intervention on pregnant women