calcium levels in neonates leading to hypocalcemia which may be due to several factors.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: assess the serum calcuim levels of newborn after birth asphyxia and to find out any correlation of levels of serum

calcium with severity of asphyxia.

METHODOLOGY: This is a Hospital based observational study conducted at tertiary care hospital in india. Babies with APGAR score of less

than 7 at 5 minute were included in the study. Babies were divided in to two groups . Group A mild grade birth asphyxia and group B moderate to

severe birth asphyxia. data was analyzed and appropriate statistical analysis done.

RESULTS: total 110 babies had birth asphyxia during this period of study and were included in the study. Group A had 80 babies mild birth

asphyxia and group 2 had 30 babies moderate to severe birth asphyxia. Hypocalcemia was present in 41 cases of birth asphyxia babies of total 110

babies (37.7%). Group A 25 babies had hypocalcemia of total 80 babies (31.25%) with mean serum calcium levels of 5.85 and in group B 16 babies

had hypocalcemia of total 30 babies (53.3%) with mean serum calcium levels of 5.81. Serum calcium values were not statistically significant

between cases of hypocalcemia in Group A and Group B with p value of 0.80.

CONCLUSION: hypocalcemia was more common in moderate to severe cases of hypoxic encephalopathy cases compared to mild cases but

serum calcium levels were not statistically significant between two groups.