Optimising lung aeration at birth

Our current understanding of airway liquid clearance at birth comes predominantly from animal models, but emerging techniques may allow researchers to study the rate and uniformity of lung aeration at birth in human infants. Broadly, this thesis aims to understand how to optimise lung aeration at birth. Chapter 1 examines the effect of different inflation times and surfactant on lung aeration in newborn rabbits. Chapters 3 and 4 develop lung ultrasound as a way of measuring lung aeration at birth in newborn lambs, with a view of using this approach to further study lung aeration at birth in human infants.