Prevention of HMD and survival in low-birth-weight infants

The functional immaturity of lung in preterm babies leads to an acute progressive breathing failure, the so-called hyaline membrane disease (HMD). In the last few years, neonatal mortality for HMD, approximately 1.5%, has greatly decreased with skilled nursing and physician management, but it still represents a major cause of mortality [1]. An important point is its prevention, inducing fetal lung maturation in utero by means of drugs administered to the mother [2] and developing surfactant substitutes for the treatment of surfactant deficiency at birth or following the development of HMD [3,4]. As preterm newborn infants of gestational age <33 weeks are a high-risk group for developing HMD, we analyse the survival of very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants with respect to both antepartum maternal administration of Ambroxol and severity of HMD.