Survival After Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in Babies of Very Low Birth Weight. Is CPR Futile Therapy?

Abstract

Babies of very low birth weight (<1500 g) account for 50% of all neonatal deaths, even though their survival has dramatically improved as a result of modern neonatal intensive care advances. The development of criteria for determining which babies will benefit from aggressive treatment is difficult, and it is imperative that physicians know the effectiveness of therapies for various subpopulations in the neonatal intensive care unit. Since many infants weighing less than 1,500 g and born at less than 37 weeks' gestation require CPR in the first 48 hours of life, the authors retrospectively studied the effectiveness of such therapy to determine prognostic criteria for its initiation.