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Treatment with a Surfactant
Your baby may have received surfactant replacement therapy. It is an accepted and common treatment in preventing and treating RDS for babies born prematurely. Surfactant treatment is given to babies through a tube inserted into the windpipe. The surfactant coats the surface of the alveoli and takes the place of your baby's missing surfactant. Treatment can be given as soon after birth as possible, preferably within 15 minutes and often while your baby is still in the delivery room (this is called prevention therapy), or after RDS has been diagnosed, preferably by 8 hours of age (this is called rescue therapy). More than one dose of surfactant may be given to your baby in the first 48 hours
of her life.
Improvement is usually seen very soon after treatment. The goal of this treatment is to remove your baby from the ventilator sooner by decreasing the amount of extra oxygen and lowering the ventilator pressures that are needed for normal breathing. Clinical studies since the 1980s have shown that treatment with surfactant is safe and reduces the number of deaths from RDS. Such therapy is very helpful in the early management of RDS to help your baby breathe easier.
* IMS DDD Lung Surfactant Market Purchases July 1991 through June 2008. On file, Abbott Nutrition Marketing Research.
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