Crying Vital Capacity

Abstract

There is no universally accepted means of evaluating the newborn infant with respiratory distress. Various workers have devised different schemes of clinical classification and roentgenological observation of these infants.^1-5 Laboratory measures of pulmonary function seldom have been applied to the routine evaluation of the distressed newborn infant. The present study describes a simple and inexpensive measure of a lung volume in the newborn infant. This may prove a useful addition to current clinical methods of observation of the infant with respiratory distress. The physiology of the neonatal respiratory distress syndrome has been reviewed by James.⁶ Tidal volume is normal or slightly reduced. The more or less normal tidal volume is possible because of increased work performed against increased elastic resistance of the lungs. With the increased respiratory rate, elevated minute volume results. In spite of the adjustments by the infant which result in normal or increased ventilation, the