Can all neonatal resuscitation be managed by nurse practitioners?

Lai-Cheng Chan ^1* and Edmund Hey ²

¹ Wansbeck Hospital, United Kingdom
² Retired Paediatrician, United Kingdom

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lai.chan{at}northumbria-healthcare.nhs.uk.

Accepted 8 August 2005

Abstract

Aim:To assess the ability of nurse practitioners to manage the care of all babies requiring resuscitation at birth in a unit without on-site medical assistance.

Method:A prospective review, and selective external audit, of the case records of all the 14,572 babies born in a maternity unit in the north of England during the first eight years after nurse practitioners replaced resident paediatric staff in 1996.

Results:Every nonmalformed baby with an audible heart beat at the start of delivery was successfully resuscitated. Twenty term babies, and 41 preterm babies, were intubated at birth. Eight term babies only responded after acidosis or hypovolaemia was corrected following umbilical vein catheterisation; in each case that catheter was in place within 6 minutes of birth. Early grade II-III neonatal encephalopathy occurred with much the same frequency (0.12%) as in other recent studies. Independent external cross-validated review found no case of sub-standard care during the first hour of life.

Conclusion:The practitioners successfully managed all the problems coming their way from the time of appointment. There was no evidence that their skill decreased over time even though, on average, they only found themselves undertaking laryngeal intubation once a year. It remains to be shown that this level of competence can be replicated in other settings.

Keywords: neonatal resuscitation, laryngeal intubation, nurse practitioners

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