Prediction of Neonatal Respiratory Distress

A Method of Assessing Amniotic Fluid Lecithin Concentrations and Predicting Foetal Lung Maturity, by Estimating Total Palmitic Acid Concentration Using G.L.C.

“…The lecithin concentration has been assessed either on the chromatogram, by staining with a reagent for phosphate detection (Gluck et al, 1971' Macdonald andIsherwood, 1972;Whitfield and Sproule, 1972), or by scraping the material off the plate and determining the phosphate in this (Nelson, 1972;Bhagwanani et al, 1972). The former methods can only be semi-quantitative, whilst the latter are very time consuming for routine use.…”