Care of the Newborn in the Emergency Department

Course overview

Your patient arrives to the ED and delivers within minutes of arrival. The infant appears to be preterm and is not moving or breathing. Would you know how to respond to this emergency? What would your initial interventions be for this infant? What life-saving actions would be required of you to help save this infant? In this activity, we will discuss care of the newborn in the ED and highlight terminology, physiology and interventions related to neonatal emergency events. After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: evaluate the effectiveness of newborn respiration and recognize newborn compromise; describe newborn transition physiology (uterus to extrauterine environment); list post-delivery interventions for mother/baby care; and identify and manage several unique resuscitation situations of compromised infants.