Electrocardiographic potential distributions in newborn infants from 12 hours to 8 days after birth

Abstract Electrocardiographic potential distributions were studied in newborn infants whose ECG's change rapidly with days corresponding to the hemodynamic variations and adaptations. Chest ECG's were taken from 25 explored points on the anterior precordium, sampled every 2 msec., and quantitated by an average response computer. A digital computer was also used to compute bilinear interpolating values between adjacent explored points, and equipotential lines were printed on a line printer. The investigating period was from 12 hours to 8 days after birth. These potential distributions in infants were very different from those of adults and children, and showed clearly a pattern of right ventricular preponderance. This pattern could be seen during the investigating period, but distributions which might show increasing load on the left ventricle, and the left ventricular preponderance were observed in the latter days of investigation.