Introduction

Oxygen in neonates is both, friend and foe. It may be life-saving in case of (often immaturity-related) respiratory insufficiency, but at the same time may also have an extremely negative impact on critical metabolic pathways simply because the neonatal organism has not yet experienced the need to learn how to cope with the fact that oxygen levels outside the womb are more than 3 times higher than they were during fetal life. The antioxidant defense system matures only late in gestation, and hyperoxia is a metabolic situation that never happens in biology.

Source: Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine - January 22, 2020 Category: Perinatology & Neonatology Authors: Maximo Vento, Christian F. Poets Source Type: research