- pneumothorax.
A small subependymal haemorrhage may have no clinical features. If the subependymal haemorrhage increases or extends, the clinical features may include the following:
- increasing frequency and severity of apnoeic episodes
- pallor
- poor peripheral circulation
- tonic convulsions
- decerebrate posturing
- the appearance of divergent squinting
Intracranial haemorrhage
Intracranial haemorrhage may occur in preterm babies even after what has seemed an easy delivery. Its occurrence is facilitated by intrauterine hypoxia and by the poor skull ossification and fragile blood vessels. Pretem babies are specially liable to haemorrhage into one of the lateral ventricles of the brain (interavenrtricular haemorrhage), which may well be fatal.
Episodes of hypotension or hypertension may result in intraventricular haemorrhage. If hemisphere (Fig. 19978) it is termed a cerebral or parenchymal haemorrhage. Other factors which contribute to intraventicular haemorrhage include the obstruction of intracerebral veins and any abnormaliy in clotting.
