European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background: In the early neonatal period, respiratory distress affects up to 7% of new-born babies. (1) The respiratory distress syndrome and chronic lung disease of prematurity in preterm new-borns (gestational age 37 weeks) have received a lot of attention (2,3), but many term-born infants are brought to neonatal units each year for the care of their respiratory distress. OBJECTIVES: • To estimate the incidence of respiratory distress in term neonates. • To know the risk factors of respiratory distress in term neonates. • Evaluation of outcome of respiratory distress in term neonates during their hospital stay. Material & Methods: Study Design:  Hospital based prospective observational study Study area: The study was conducted in the Department of Paediatrics, Mallareddy institute of medical sciences, Hyderabad, Telangana. Study Period: Oct. 2022 – March 2023. Study population:  Term neonates admitted to Inborn and Out born NICU. Sample size: Study consisted a total of 100 subjects. Sampling Technique:  Simple Random technique. Results: In this study, out of 100 babies with respiratory distress, 30 babies (30%) had Downe’s score of 2; 30 babies (30%) had a score of 3; 11 babies (11%) had a score of 4 and 19 babies (19%) had a score of 5. Inference was that most of the babies with respiratory distress had a lower Downe’s score in the range of 2-4. It was found that, 84 babies (84%) had a perinatal risk score of 0 – 3.  Conclusion: From our study we conclude that there was a highly significant association between Caesarean extraction and RD. Frequency of RD is inversely related to gestational age and birth weight. 74 babies admitted with respiratory distress required only Oxygen, whereas 5 required mechanical ventilation and 32 required CPAP. 97% survived and 3% died in the present study. k score of 0-3.