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“An opportunity to help neonates and small infants to breath in low and middle-income countries”

Pediatric Research volume 98, pages 18–19 (2025)Cite this article

One of the most important problems related to pediatric and neonatal care is respiratory failure support due to different conditions such as respiratory immaturity, establishment of functional residual capacity at delivery or acute respiratory distress (ARDS) secondary to different conditions in neonates and infants as meconium aspiration syndrome, pneumonia and others. All these situations are very common and frequently resolved in most of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in developed countries, but this is not the case in low- and middle-income countries (MICs) where there may be a challenging situation as standard medical respiratory devices are not available or are only available in low numbers due to their high cost and the need for other resources such as electricity, oxygen and medical air supplies. Low cost and easy to use equipment to help babies and sick infants to breathe are not developed by the medical industry, probably due to the low return of investment, and if in some hospitals more sophisticated or expensive devices are obtained, they are obtained with important limitations such as ventilator tubes, humidifiers along with oxygen and medical air supplies, which imply a great problem for their use.

Any effort to develop this technology in the form of devices that provide continuous pressure distension (CPAP) and mechanical ventilators that support minute ventilation are necessary to treat respiratory failure until recovery and will probably solve the most common causes of respiratory failure and decrease the neonatal and small infants high mortality in those countries.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neonatology Division, Gregorio Marañón University Hospital, O’Donnell 48, 28007, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel Sanchez Luna

  2. Neonatology Division, University Hospital Gregorio Marañón, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Noelia González Pacheco

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  1. Manuel Sanchez Luna
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  2. Noelia González Pacheco
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Correspondence to Manuel Sanchez Luna.

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Luna, M.S., Pacheco, N.G. “An opportunity to help neonates and small infants to breath in low and middle-income countries”. Pediatr Res 98, 18–19 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-03931-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-025-03931-3

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