Time to standardise neonatal pulse oximetry.

Pulse oximetry is commonly used to assess requirement for supplemental oxygen at discharge for preterm infants with confirmed or suspected chronic lung disease. Criteria for supplemental oxygen vary, with disparate devices used and no standardised assessment protocol.1 Establishing normative oximeter reference limits in healthy term newborns is a necessary prelude to establishing such values for ex-preterm infants. Published data for extended oximetry recordings in healthy newborns have typically used short (~2 s) averaging time,2 but in order to reduce alarm fatigue most units using newer generation oximeters use the longer default averaging time of 8 s.3 We carried out overnight pulse oximetry recording using a Masimo Radical-7 device in a prospective study of healthy term newborns delivered by elective caesarean section and recruited from the postnatal wards …