Research in the Delivery Room: Can You Tell Me It’s Evolution?

Abstract

Many of the recommendations for newborn care in the delivery room (DR) are based on retrospective observational studies, preclinical studies of mannequins or animal models, and expert opinion. Conducting DR research is challenging. Many deliveries occur in fraught circumstances with little prior warning, making it difficult to get prospective consent from parents and buy-in from clinicians. Many DR interventions are difficult to mask for the purpose of a clinical trial and it is not easy to identify appropriate outcomes for studies that are sufficiently "short-term" that they are likely to be influenced by the intervention, yet sufficiently "long-term" to be considered clinically important. However, despite these challenges, much information has been accrued from clinical studies in recent years. In this article, we outline our experience of conducting clinical research in the DR. In our initial studies almost 20 years ago, we found wide variation in the equipment used both nationally and internationally, reflecting the paucity of evidence to support practice. This started a journey that has included many observational studies and randomized controlled trials that have attempted to refine how we care for newborn infants in the DR. Each has given further information and, inevitably, raised many more questions about the approach to caring for newborns in the DR.