Respiration of Premature Infants

It has long been recognized that records of the breathing of prematurely born infants demonstrate gross irregularities in rate and in amplitude, as well as in the points of maximum inspiration and expiration. This has been generally and rather vaguely accepted as due to immaturity of the respiratory centers of these infants, a phenomenon considered as not necessarily due to oxygen lack, although quite possibly causing it. The question has frequently arisen as to how consistently the respiratory centers of these immature babies respond to the usual stimuli of carbon dioxide excess or oxygen lack, and clinicians have long been undecided as to the value of excess-oxygen therapy, especially when obvious cyanosis is not present. To attempt to get some further light on these problems, a series of premature babies, 33 in number, were studied. PROCEDURE For the test the infant was placed in a body plethysmograph, the head projecting