Pediatric Pathology

Fetal and Neonatal Pathology

Fetal and perinatal pathology is taken to include embryonic, fetal, perinatal and neonatal pathology. It is an examination or clinical investigations of mid-trimester abortuses and for placenta.  It’s recommended that placentas be examined from all stillbirths, multiple pregnancies, low birth weight and small-for-gestational age babies and abnormal pregnancies. Immune hydrops is generally diagnosed antenatally and the autopsy commonly provides confirmation and documentation of the extent of cardiovascular compromise in the healthy tissues of the patient. In cases of unexplained non-immune hydrops, significant structural abnormalities have usually been excluded by tertiary referral ultrasound examination and in this setting the role of the autopsy is primarily used to identify undetected abnormalities, such as congenital cardiac disease, and, more commonly it is related to facilitate ancillary investigations for the detection of underlying pathologies which are non-detectable sonographically, such as inherited metabolic disorders and a wide range of genetic syndromes.