Delivery room management of term and preterm newly born infants

Abstract

Delivery room management, especially in the first 'golden' minute, is of the utmost importance. An exact and universal definition of when a baby is born is needed to obtain agreement on what is meant by the first minute of life. Education of young girls is a basic requirement to optimize the health of the mother and baby. Interventions in pregnancy should as far as possible be evidence based. Antenatal care, the selection of birth mode and antenatal steroid therapy when indicated also contribute to obtaining the best outcome. Delayed cord clamping is recommended for both preterm and term infants. However, more data are needed regarding the most immature infants. Routine suctioning of the mouth and airways is not required. Thermal control is important - keep the temperature in the delivery room at 26°C and wrap infants <28 weeks of gestation in plastic. However, this procedure does not reduce mortality. Since delayed cord clamping increases mean birth weight by approximately 30 g/kg, the present birth weight charts based on early clamping need to be corrected. Preterm infants in need of ventilatory support should start with CPAP from the first breath. A T-piece device seems to have some advantages compared to self-inflating bags. Surfactant instillation is often not needed prophylactically provided the mother has received antenatal steroids. Less invasive methods for administering surfactant may be useful. If ventilatory support is needed, start with air in term and near-term infants. For babies of 29-33 weeks of gestation start with 21-30% oxygen and for infants <29 weeks start with 30% oxygen and adjust according to the response obtained.