Surfactant and Respiratory Support 2/01/2021

This week, I learned more in depth about surfactant, lung development and the different stages, respiratory support and more! Ms. Mormon sent over a slideshow on lung development, videos of a baby who was born at 23 weeks gestation, an article about surfactant and a repository powerpoint. We also watched a really great video on how to insert an endotracheal tube and how that process works. There was so much to learn this week and Ms. Mormon did a great job explaining everything so that I could understand it! Some things that really stuck out to me this week were that NNPs are able to read x-rays to determine if a baby needs surfactant, so that their air sacs in their lungs will stay open! They work closely with a respiratory therapist in order to determine what type of respiratory support they need. I also didn’t know the order in which babies need respiratory care. For instance, they start off with a ventilator then work their way to a high flow nasal cannula. I also learned that each baby needs different needs, so NNPs take a sample of blood gas to determine what that is. Another clue is how much oxygen they need or even carbon dioxide. This is all needed because their lungs are underdeveloped. All of this information is really interesting to me as I keep learning more about it!