Placental Pathology, Perinatal Death, Neonatal Outcome, and Neurological Development: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: The placenta plays a crucial role during pregnancy for growth and development of the fetus. Less than optimal placental performance may result in morbidity or even mortality of both mother and fetus. Awareness among pediatricians, however, of the benefit of placental findings for neonatal care, is limited. OBJECTIVES: To provide a systematic overview of the relation between placental lesions and neonatal outcome. DATA SOURCES: Pubmed database, reference lists of selected publications and important research groups in the field. STUDY APPRAISAL AND SYNTHESIS METHODS: We systematically searched the Pubmed database for literature on the relation between placental lesions and fetal and neonatal mortality, neonatal morbidity and neurological outcome. We conducted three separate searches starting with a search for placental pathology and fetal and neonatal mortality, followed by placental pathology and neonatal morbidity, and finally placental pathology and neurological development. We limited our search to full-text articles published in English from January 1995 to October 2013. We refined our search results by selecting the appropriate articles from the ones found during the initial searches. The first selection was based on the title, the second on the abstract, and the third on the full article. The quality of the selected articles was determined by using the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale. RESULTS: Placental lesions are one of the main causes of fetal death, where placental lesions consistent with maternal vascular underperfusion are most important. Several neonatal problems are also associated with placental lesions, whereby ascending intrauterine infection (with a fetal component) and fetal thrombotic vasculopathy constitute the greatest problem. CONCLUSIONS: The placenta plays a key role in fetal and neonatal mortality, morbidity, and outcome. Pediatricians should make an effort to obtain the results of placental examinations.