Objective
To compare clinical complications of newborns delivered from women with and without intrapartum fever.

Study design
Subjects were identified from women enrolled in the national multicenter longitudinal Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. This is a cohort study of women recruited from 20 cities (populations >200,000) delivering in 75 hospitals across the United States. Women delivering in the context of the Fragile Family (unwed) were over sampled. Perinatal data used for this study were abstracted from medical records by trained personnel and enrolled subjects were interviewed prior to hospital discharge. Selected newborn complications were compared between women with and without fever in labor using parametric and non-parametric statistics. Newborns may have had more than one complication.

Results
Of the 2058 subjects studied, 8% (168) had an intrapartum fever. Preterm birth was more common with fever, 20% (33), vs no fever, 11% (204), P<0.001. There were no significant differences in meconium aspiration, jaundice, rate of hypoglycemia, birth injury, abnormality on newborn genetic screening or other miscellaneous complications.

Conclusion
Intrapartum fever is a significant risk factor for a variety of newborn complications. Nearly 80% of newborns from febrile mothers were associated with some abnormal newborn condition.