Fig. 4

The solid line shows the Severity Index (SI) changes throughout the gestational period, for premature but otherwise healthy infants. SI is calculated from Eq. 4, in which the immediate cord clamping (ICC) hemodynamics is compared to the delayed cord clamping (DCC). ICC results an increasingly adverse impact on circulatory and respiratory adaptation during the early postnatal transition period for preterm infants. The plot also displays SI values of the three diseased preterm cases investigated in this study, at the 30th week gestational age (labeled with asterisk symbol). These disease states are respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in blue, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in green, and growth restriction (GR) in black are plotted alongside the normal premature SI curve for comparison