How Aggressive Should Delivery Room Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Be for Extremely Low Birth Weight Neonates?

The neonatology staff attending high-risk deliveries are often faced with difficult ethical decisions. One of these is whether or not to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on extremely low birth weight neonates in the delivery room. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of information in the medical literature addressing this dilemma. To determine whether guidelines for resuscitation of the extremely low birth weight neonate could be set, I undertook a chart review of all neonates born with a birth weight of 1000 g or less in our institution. METHODS All babies born at the Ottawa General Hospital who weighed 1000 g or less at birth were identified through the neonatal intensive care unit logbook, which records all births at which a neonatal physician is in attendance.