The diagnosis of defibrination syndrome in shock, sepsis and neonatal hypoxia is based, in addition to the clinical picture, upon a few parameters of the hemostatic system, which, in part as global tests, provide information about the course of coagulation. The parameters measured are partial thromboplastin time, thromboplastin time, plasma thrombin time, fibrinogen, thrombin-coagulase and reptilase times as well as platelet count. Normal values of these laboratory parameters were established for healthy newborns 1--5 days of age, and for healthy adults. It is suggested that especially partial thromboplastin time, the thrombin-coagulase and reptilase times, the latter influenced by fibrinolysis cleavage products, are representative for the tentative diagnosis of disseminated intravascular coagulation with fibrinolysis syndrome (DICFS). The platelet fall often lags 1--2 days behind the event. Moreover normal values for newborns, are markedly higher than those for older children or adults. In the presence of DICFS, a low-dose heparin therapy is immediately initiated. If completed defibrination is manifest, therapy is supplemented with urokinase and streptokinase, For DICFS with congenital sepsis, an exchange transfusion with heparinized fresh blood is the treatment of choice.