Grant: Project Grant

Annually, 2-3 million newborn babies are born without a heartbeat due to lack of oxygen at birth. When this happens, the clinical team starts chest compression and gives epinephrine to kickstart the heart. This is called cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an infrequent event in newborn babies (~1% of all births). Newborn babies who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation at birth often do not survive and survivors have high rates of neurological impairment. This puts a heavy burden on health resources since these infants require frequent hospital re-admission and long-term care. The medications given to kickstart the heart often does not work and there is a different medication (what is called vasopressin) available, which could improve outcomes for babies. Giving vasopressin could improve survival and reduce long-term burdens in newborn babies born without a heartbeat. We will use our established animal model to study epinephrine and vasopressin during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Our established swine model will allow us to investigate and to identify the most effective medication during cardiopulmonary resuscitation for newborn infants. We thus believe that the optimal medication during neonatal cardiopulmonary resuscitation might i) improve survival of newborn infants in the delivery room and ii) reduce short and long-term morbidities of newborn infants. This is a unique approach, which has the potential to improve the care of many newborn babies in Canada and can be adopted by clinicians in delivery rooms around the world.