Hypothermia in the Treatment of Asphyxia Neonatorum

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Abstract
Controlled experiments using 5 species of mammals (guinea-pigs, piglets, rabbits, kittens and puppies) show that hypothermia protects neonatal infants from death caused by asphyxiation. Cooling was beneficial when initiated immediately before or at any time during the asphyxial period. On the other hand, hypoxia-hypercapnia counteracts certain deleterious "secondary effects" of cooling in mammals, thereby, greatly reduces the hazards of cooling. Cooling after the administration of nembutal or chlorpromazine enhanced the drug effects. In 75 severely asphyxiated infants for whom routine resuscitative measures previously had been unsuccessful there were five full term infants and nine prematures who died. Follow-up studies on 61 infants that are alive, indicate normal development for the survivors in spite of apneic periods as long as 3 hours and 9 minutes. These results suggest that there is no fundamental difference between the response of the asphyxiated newborn infant to cooling and that of the 5 species of animals which have been tested.