Responses

Download PDFPDF
Question 2: Should nasal mask or binasal prongs be used for continuous positive airway pressure in preterm infants?
Compose Response

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Author Information
First or given name, e.g. 'Peter'.
Your last, or family, name, e.g. 'MacMoody'.
Your email address, e.g. higgs-boson@gmail.com
Your role and/or occupation, e.g. 'Orthopedic Surgeon'.
Your organization or institution (if applicable), e.g. 'Royal Free Hospital'.
Statement of Competing Interests

PLEASE NOTE:

  • A rapid response is a moderated but not peer reviewed online response to a published article in a BMJ journal; it will not receive a DOI and will not be indexed unless it is also republished as a Letter, Correspondence or as other content. Find out more about rapid responses.
  • We intend to post all responses which are approved by the Editor, within 14 days (BMJ Journals) or 24 hours (The BMJ), however timeframes cannot be guaranteed. Responses must comply with our requirements and should contribute substantially to the topic, but it is at our absolute discretion whether we publish a response, and we reserve the right to edit or remove responses before and after publication and also republish some or all in other BMJ publications, including third party local editions in other countries and languages
  • Our requirements are stated in our rapid response terms and conditions and must be read. These include ensuring that: i) you do not include any illustrative content including tables and graphs, ii) you do not include any information that includes specifics about any patients,iii) you do not include any original data, unless it has already been published in a peer reviewed journal and you have included a reference, iv) your response is lawful, not defamatory, original and accurate, v) you declare any competing interests, vi) you understand that your name and other personal details set out in our rapid response terms and conditions will be published with any responses we publish and vii) you understand that once a response is published, we may continue to publish your response and/or edit or remove it in the future.
  • By submitting this rapid response you are agreeing to our terms and conditions for rapid responses and understand that your personal data will be processed in accordance with those terms and our privacy notice.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Vertical Tabs

Other responses

Jump to comment:

  • Published on:
    The use of nasal mask continuous positive airway pressure in preterm infants.
    • Mark W Davies, Neonatologist Grantley Stable Neonatal Unit, Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

    The evidence that nasal mask continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is better than bilateral, short nasal prong CPAP is convincing.1 However the evidence of benefit is only for short-term outcomes. I have significant concerns about using nasal mask CPAP continuously over many days in extremely preterm or extremely low birth weight infants. These babies have soft malleable skulls. We saw that this was a problem decades ago when small babies were primarily nursed with their head on the side; and subsequent dolichocephaly was very common as a result.2 The hat and straps needed to keep a mask in place put pressure on a baby's soft, malleable skull in a different way to the hat used during nasal prong CPAP. The long term effects of this pressure on boney development, particularly of the midface, are unknown, but they could be considerable. Because of these concerns I do not use nasal mask CPAP continuously. I alternate the use of masks with nasal prongs.

    1. Kieran EA, Twomey AR, Molloy EJ, et al. Randomized trial of prongs or mask for nasal continuous positive airway pressure in preterm infants. Pediatrics 2012;130:e1170–6.doi:10.1542/peds.2011-3548.

    2. Ifflaender S, Rüdiger M, Konstantelos D, Wahls K, Burkhardt W. Prevalence of head deformities in preterm infants at term equivalent age. Early Human Development 2013;89(12):1041-1047.

    Conflict of Interest:
    None declared.