To Becky Hanson:

You brought up a good point about succionning babies.  It is often felt
that if meconium is present in the fluid, babies need to be succioned.
And this is true!!!

However, many pediatricians learned that they need to intubate the
trachea to succion the meconium from below the cords to prevent lung
disease.  I found a great article entitled "When to succion the meconium
stained newborn? by Allan Cunningham, in Contemporary Pediatrics 10(1)
pp91-109, 1991 which discusses the pros and cons of the type of
succionning.  In the litterature it is well documented that adequate oro
pharyngeal succioning before the body of the baby's body is delivered is
the best way to go (only about 2-3% of respiratory disease) versus
tracheal succioning (10-60 % of disease).

Meconium is one instance where I feel succion is needed, but based on
this review, I hope that more of my colleagues can use a more gentler yet
more effective approach.  Believe me the differences in results were not
pointed out to me in my training!!

Also food for tought.....  If a baby passed meconium, how do you make the
distinction between the effect of the original stress and the succionning
on the baby's suck?

Maryelle Vonlanthen, MD