Management of Respiratory Distress of Newborn

Abstract

Respiratory distress are more often seen in the newborn period specially in premature infants because of immature lungs than other life period of children. Respiratory distress that becomes manifested by tachypnea, intercostal retractions, cyanosis, expiratory grunting, and nasal flaring is a nonspecific response to serious illness. Not all of the disorders producing neonatal respiratory distress are primary diseases of the lungs. The differential diagnosis of respiratory distress includes pulmonary, cardiac, hematologic, infectious, anatomic, and metabolic disorders that may involve the lungs directly or indirectly. Surfactant deficiency causes RDS, resulting in cyanosis and tachypnea; infection produces pneumonia, shown by interstitial or lobar infiltrates; meconium aspiration results in a chemical pneumonitis with hypoxia and pulmonary hypertension; bronchopulmonary dysplasia or chronic lung disease of newborn causes prolonged tachypnea, oxygen dependency and fibrosis shown in chest graph. Transient tachypnea of newborn or wet lung is a benign course for newborn. It also is clinically useful to differentiate the common causes of respiratory distress according to gestational age. All these disorders have been reviewed in the light of last literatures.