Background: Turner's syndrome is one of the most frequent diseases with accompanying growth deficiency, the developmental disorders being observed as early as in the fetal period.
Objectives: To determine the body mass of Turner's syndrome newborns delivered at term.
Material and methods: A total of 474 female newborns with Turner's syndrome were studied, the pregnancies, mostly second ones, lasting 40 weeks on average but not less than 38 weeks. Turner's syndrome was confirmed by chromosome analysis. Body mass at birth (BM) was related to the norms for gestational age (GA) designed by Usher and McLean. Newborns, whose BM was lower than -2 SD for GA, were considered as small for gestational age (SGA).
Results: Mean body mass (+/-SD) at birth was 2963 +/- g and in 87% of newborns was below the normal value for gestational age. Mean body mass deficiency amounted to 611 g, but in 20% of newborns exceeded 1000 g.
Conclusion: In 19% of newborns body mass was below -2 SD for gestational age which classified intrauterine dystrophy as one of the most frequent features of the Turner's syndrome. It might, furthermore, imply that intrauterine dystrophy could be associated with impaired gene expression, presumably on the X-chromosome.