Fetal distress in neonatal cetaceans

Abstract

Fetal distress can be understood as a state in which a series of metabolic alterations occur in the mother-foetus relationship and as a main consequence a picture of hypoxemia and later hypoxia, hypercapnia and acidosis develops. To carry out this study of fetal distress in stranded neonatal cetaceans in the Canary Islands, we have mainly based our study on injuries at lung level. The selection process consisted of 4 phases. A first selection has been made of those in which the complete pathological analysis could be performed, a second selection based on those that presented a neonatal/perinatal pathology, and a third selection for those which revealed fetal distress. Finally, on the last phase, although 3 individuals were diagnosed with fetal distress and were initially considered in this study in the end they were eliminated from the histopathological evaluation due to their advanced state of autolysis. Therefore, they were not included in our results. The main objective of this study is to describe primarily the lung histopathological features of newborn/neonatal cetaceans which presented and died due to fetal distress and also heart lesions associated with this pathology. The results obtained coincide with those described in the literature, with meconium aspiration, presence of keratin spicules in alveolar sacs and bronchi, oedema and atelectasis being the lesions found in these studied neonates with fetal distress. Acute degenerative changes were also found at the heart level.