On birth injuries of the upper cervical vertebrae

The examination of 2000 children of the first two years of life revealed 160 children with neurological signs of moderately pronounced lesions of the upper spinal cord. We radiographed the upper cervical vertebrae through the open mouth. 72 children were at the age of the first 3 months of life, 62 were under 6 months, 18 were under one year, and 8 were older than one year. Eight of these children were born prematurely and 25 were born with a body weight of more than 4 kg. Sixteen of the 160 infants were born breech. The obstetric history of 160 children was not so complicated: obstetric aids were required only for 8 newborns. Fifty-six of the 160 children were born in white asphyxia and 41 in blue asphyxia. Consequently, secondary asphyxia was very frequent, and given the unexpected number of radiological and clinical findings we found, this asphyxia can also be interpreted as a consequence of birth trauma in an apparently normal delivery. In addition, we noticed that 47 mothers of our patients had a rapid pushing period, which is given great importance as a traumatic factor.