Smacc

Trish Woods guides you through some clinical pearls in the intensive care management of neonates. The complex physiology of the transitioning required in the journey from foetal life to neonatal presents many challenges and scary moments. Trish helps you to navigate these challenges and to unlock the key to providing quality neonatal intensive care. Many things can go wrong in the neonatal period as babies transition to life in the real world. Trish highlights her thoughts on the use of positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP), how deep to intubate, when to clamp the cord and the use of ultrasound. When babies arrive early their lungs can be full of meconium or fluid. Due to this, Trish recommends using PEEP – without which there is distal airway collapse and fluid accumulation. Aeration of the lungs is vital. To this end, how deep should intubation be aimed? The depth may not be overly important. This is because regional lung aeration triggers widespread, global increase in pulmonary blood flow. There is litt