Respiratory Distress Syndrome: Diagnosis, Prevention and Treatment

Respiratory Distress Syndrome (infant RDS or hyaline membrane disease) is an acute lung disease. Usually affect premature babies or infants of diabetic mothers. Layers of tissue called hyaline membranes keep oxygen that is breathed in from passing into the blood. The lungs become "airless." An infant born with RDS will die within a few days after birth without treatment of oxygen, provided in neonatal intensive care unit. The syndrome has an 85 percent mortality rate, and ranks as the sixth most common cause of death in newborns in the United States. Approximately, one-fourth of premature infants develop respiratory distress syndrome or about 60,000 children born in the United States each year weighing less than three pounds. Infants that survive, many suffer permanent lung damage. This can slow grow, increase the possibility of infection and result in abnormal brain development.

An infant born healthy has small air sacs (alveoli) at the ends of the breathing tube, which remain open, allowing oxygen in the air can get into the tiny blood vessels that surround the alveoli. During the last months of a normally or healthy pregnancy, cells in the alveoli produce a substance called surfactant, which keep the surface tension inside the alveoli low, allowing the air sac to expand at the moment of birth, and infant can breathe normally. The production of surfactant starts about 34 week of pregnancy and by 37 week, fetal lungs have matured, normal amount is present. However, a premature infant is born, insufficient amount of surfactant may not have formed in the alveoli, causing the lungs to collapse.