What Is Neonatal Resuscitation?
Neonatal resuscitation can also be called newborn resuscitation. This means for someone (hopefully a medical professional) to perform resuscitation on a newborn child suffering from birth asphyxia.
The meaning of resuscitation can be quite broad. In simple terms, it means to correct any physiological defects or disorders the patients may be experiencing. For example, mouth to mouth resuscitation is an attempt to correct and clear out the airways of a patient so he or she can breathe.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an attempt to restore proper blood circulation to the heart, brain, and other vital organs in the event of cardiac arrest. Resuscitation is one of the important aspects of intensive care and surgery.
Neonatal resuscitation can be one of the most important aspects of child birth. Over 20% of neonatal deaths are caused by birth asphyxia. In the case of birth asphyxia, the infant to be resuscitated as quickly as possible.
Resuscitation will help the newborn baby avoid organ damage or failure. Most importantly, we want the infant to avoid long term brain damage. Birth asphyxia can be caused respiratory depression, premature child birth, and many other signs.
If the baby is born healthy (the baby is crying, breathing properly, normal color skin, good size, etc.). If the child is missing any vital signs of health, then the doctor will perform a various amount of assessments to find out the issue wrong with the child.
This is where the doctor determines if the infant is suffering from birth asphyxia. If that is the case, resuscitation will be performed immediately.
This is why it is important that all medical professionals present are certified in neonatal resuscitation. The best way to do that is going through a certification program. This is further explained below. Many different types of nurses (such as Travel and Flight nurses) are certified in neonatal resuscitation.
See also Nursing conversions
What Is The Neonatal Resuscitation Program?
This is a program to educate and certify medical professionals in neonatal resuscitation. This program was created by The American Academy of Pediatrics. The goal is teach basic resuscitation skills for newborn babies.
This program has several different options for completion. Nurses, medical professionals, and students can take a full day course in a classroom or can take an online course and study independently. However with online courses, students will still need to show up to a classroom and practice resuscitation skills.
This course teaches all the different aspects of newborn resuscitation. Mostly importantly, medical professionals will learn how to detect for birth asphyxia and implement neonatal resuscitation if needed.