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Intraventricular haemorrhage is a grave condition in neonates, and occurs when the immature matrix of blood ventricles rupture due to stress for example during birth or increased cerebral blood flow subsequent to hypoxia. Blood pressure has a particularly profound effect on neonatal cerebral blood flow - the two are directly proportional - i.e. the physiological maturity of regulation is lacking. Note that oxygen levels can thus produce a spectrum of disease from haemorrhage to ischaemia.
The bleed is at the lateral wall of the lateral ventricle, the area overlying the caudate nucleus, and the vessels are particularly prone to rupture in the germinal layer because of their thin-walled structure with very little stroma.
This area involutes by week 33 of gestation, i.e. infants born later than this are protected.
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