Table 2.

Descriptive statistics for blood parameters indicative of trauma and serum IgG concentrations measured at 24 hours by calving difficulty in 77 cow-calf pairs*

Blood parameter	Unassisted†	Easy assist‡	Difficult assist§	P value
CK (iu/l)¶	233.5 (192–343)	310 (228–458)	696 (268–1441)	0.002
AST (iu/l)¶	61.5 (55–73)	71 (59–82)	78 (63–119)	0.01
Haptoglobin (g/l)¶	0.15 (0.13–0.16)	0.14 (0.13–0.16)	0.14 (0.13–0.15)	0.9
Serum IgG (g/l)**	47.4 (42.2–52.6)	43.3 (39.3–47.4)	36.6 (24.6–48.7)	0.1

*Pairwise comparisons reported in text.

†Calf delivered without assistance at birth.

‡One or two people pulling to extract a calf.

§More than two people pulling, a fetal extractor or caesarean section used to extract a calf.

¶Median (first interquartile to third interquartile) reported for non-normally distributed variables.

**Mean (95% CI) reported for normally distributed variables.

AST, aspartate aminotransferase; CK, creatine kinase.