RECOMMENDATIONS Each birth attendant, when faced with a newborn who is not breathing and no resuscitation equipment is available, must resuscitation mouth-to-mouth make the decision to perform or stand by and watch the newborn die. As already noted, because newborn resuscitation equipment is frequently not resuscitation is not attempted in available, if mouth-to-mouth such cases, hundreds of thousands of newborns who could be resuscitated will die. Training should be incorporated into in service and preservice nursing, midwifery, and medical education programs and into programs to train community-level health workers who attend births at home. Training in new- born resuscitation with bag and mask and distribution of bag- and-mask devices should continue, but too many newborn lives are lost and will continue to be lost if there is no backup method.
AUTHOR
Phyllis Ann (Annie") Clark, CNM, MPH, is a nurse-midwife health, with 40 years of total experience in maternal-infant both domestic and international. She has worked in 16 developing countries.