Neha Chowdary
Introduction: Respiratory distress (RD) is a common problem during newborn period with considerable mortality. It occurs in approximately 6.7 percent of neonates.A newborn with nasal flaring, tachypnoea, chest wall retractions, grunting is often judged as having RD. It is common immediately after birth and is transient in most cases.Common medical causes of RD in term newborns include transient tachypnoea of the newborn (TTNB), meconium aspiration syndrome (MAS), birth asphyxia, sepsis, pneumothorax. The risk factors that emerged as being significant included: history of maternal smoking,Caesarean section (CS) extraction and male sex.TTNB is the most common cause of neonatal RD. Inclusion criteriaincluded tachypnoea, retractions and grunting, requiring an increased concentration of inspired oxygen, usually to less than 40%, with chest roentgenogram showing good inflation and perihilar streaking and normal blood culture.
Meconium Aspiration Syndrome (MAS) is considered to be a relatively common event interm newborns. The symptoms are similar to TTNB, but more severe, more tachypnoea, retraction, and may need more oxygen. Bacterial infection is another possible cause of neonatal RD .Inspite of the varying recent advances in clinching diagnosis and management, there hasbeen very less clinical studies in term neonatal RD in our country. This study aims to assess the risk factors, and short term outcomes of RD in term newborns and also to decide upon the appropriate intervention to be used. It also aims to study the morbidity and mortality of RD. These prompt us torecommend the reduction of these risk factors to decrease the percentage of RD in full term newborn babies.
