Title | Heart rate variability during sleep in healthy term newborns in the early postnatal period. | ||
Author | Doyle, O M; Korotchikova, I; Lightbody, G; Marnane, W; Kerins, D; Boylan, G B | ||
Journal | Physiol Meas | Publication Year/Month | 2009-Aug |
PMID | 19590113 | PMCID | -N/A- |
Affiliation | 1.Neonatal Brain Research Group, University College Cork, Ireland. |
Normative time- and frequency-domain heart rate variability (HRV) measures were extracted during quiet sleep (QS) and active sleep (AS) periods in 30 healthy babies. All newborn infants studied were less than 12 h old and the sleep state was classified using multi-channel video EEG. Three bands were extracted from the heart rate (HR) spectrum: very low frequency (VLF), 0.01-0.04 Hz; low frequency (LF), 0.04-0.2 Hz, and high frequency (HF), >0.2 Hz. All metrics were averaged across all patients and per sleep state to produce a table of normative values. A noticeable peak corresponding to activity in the RSA band was found in 80% patients during QS and 0% of patients during AS, although some broadband activity was observed. The majority of HRV metrics showed a statistically significant separation between QS and AS. It can be concluded that (i) activity in the RSA band is present during QS in the healthy newborn, in the first 12 h of life, (ii) HRV measures are affected by sleep state and (iii) the averaged HRV metrics reported here could assist the interpretation of HRV data from newborns with neonatal illnesses.