High levels of parenting stress and trauma despite age-appropriate developmental outcomes following perinatal asphyxia: a cross-sectional observational study

Description

Sutterer-Verrelli and colleagues surveyed in 2026 the parents of babies who suffered perinatal asphyxia, oxygen loss around birth, and found heavy stress and trauma even where the children developed on track. The study spanned two German university centers and covered children aged one to five and a half. Groups included babies cooled as treatment, babies not cooled, and healthy controls.

Most children scored age-appropriate on development screening in every group. Parents told a different story: both asphyxia groups reported high stress, highest in the cooled group. Birth-related trauma affected nearly nine in ten cooled-group parents and about three quarters of the non-cooled group, against a small share of controls. Only a fifth of non-cooled families felt support was sufficient, and trauma strongly predicted stress. The authors urge structured support for all such families.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13436194