Normal Blood Pressure In Infants
For most adults regardless of their age the normal bp range is considered to be 120 80 or less.
Normal blood pressure in infants. Blood pressure pulse rate respiratory rate and temperature are the routine vital signs measured in medicine these vital signs remain relatively constant throughout adult life. Low blood pressure may be a goal for many adults but children with a lower than normal blood pressure can be facing serious danger. But children are not small adults and normal vital signs are different as a newborn becomes an infant and then a child. Fouzas s priftis kn anthracopoulos mb.
Blood pressure normally increases throughout life right from infancy to older adulthood. If coarctation of the aorta is the cause there may be decreased pulses or blood pressure in the legs. Bp blood pressure the 90th percentile is 1 28 sd 95th percentile is 1 645 sd and the 99th percentile is 2 326 sd over the mean. A systematic review of observational studies.
The normal values for blood pressure pulse rate and respiratory rate change as the newborn. Hypotension low blood pressure can happen in children for many reasons some of which can be easily cured dehydration while others can be more complex and life threatening disease. A normal blood pressure for an infant from birth to six months is 65 to 90 systolic the top number in a blood pressure reading and 45 to 65 diastolic the bottom number in a blood pressure reading according to the university of wisconsin hospitals and clinics authority 2 5. Interrater reliability and effect of state on blood pressure measurements in infants 1 to 3 years of age.
Correct cuff size depends on arm size. Fleming s thompson m stevens r heneghan c pluddemann a maconochie i tarassenko l mant d. Bp should be measured in the right arm of a relaxed seated child. The normal systolic blood pressure is considered to be 120 by most doctors and the normal diastolic blood pressure is considered to be 80.
Systolic blood pressure in a population of infants in the first year of life. Begin routine blood pressure bp measurement at 3 years of age. Other tests in infants with high blood pressure will try to find the cause of the problem. For research purposes the standard deviations in appendix table b 1 allow one to compute bp z scores and percentiles for boys.
For older infants the data of the second task force of the national high blood pressure education programme published in 1987 remain the most widely available reference data but were based on a single doppler measurement. Blood pressure in infants is measured with an automatic device. Practically speaking correct cuff size equals largest cuff that will fit on the upper arm with room below for the stethoscope head. A click may be heard if a bicuspid aortic valve occurs with the coarctation.
This has led to devise a helpful table of values of normal blood pressure after the first 2 weeks of life table a4 2.