From the excitement of anticipating a healthy full term baby, to being thrown into a chaotic situation starting from giving birth to an asphyxiated infant requiring aggressive resuscitation in the delivery room, to later processing the possibility of losing the baby or bringing up a developmentally delayed child is the most stressful situation a parent will ever face. Thousands of infants die every year because they cannot establish a stable heart rate due to asphyxia soon after birth. Epinephrine is often used to help these infants stabilize their heart rate because it can be rapidly delivered through the tracheal tube early during resuscitation. However it can cause high blood pressure, rapid heart rate and lead to cardiac dysfunction. Newer vasopressor agents such as vasopressin are approved for use in adults during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and have less side-effects compared to epinephrine. Vasopressin is effective when administered by the tracheal route similar …show more content…
Results of this study will have great clinical impact by improving resuscitation guidelines to hasten recovery and reduce death and neurological disability following birth asphyxia. Working under my mentor Dr. Lakshminrusimha, a pioneer in translation research and with our experienced lab personnel at the biomedical research building during this study will help me gain invaluable experience. Surgical techniques, resuscitative measures and serum markers of hypoxic brain injury would be some research methods that I will be focusing on during this time. I anticipate gathering enough preliminary data to be able to present at regional and national pediatric research conferences throughout the next 3 years. Once the sample size is achieved, I aim to analyze and publish this