Background: Thyroid hormone is essential for growth and development especially the brain. Deficiency of thyroid hormone i.e. congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is the commonest cause of preventable mental retardation. As it is difficult to diagnose CH with clinical symptoms at birth, most patients with CH are diagnosed by laboratory results. Early detection is important, either by Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) or T4 estimation or both by newborn screening. Cord blood TSH (CB-TSH) estimation has high sensitivity, but various maternal and perinatal factors affect the CB-TSH levels, which may interfere with the interpretation.
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