Complications of lasting mechanical ventilation.

1. Big picture

Lasting/prolonged mechanical ventilation in neonates, especially in preterm infants, is sometimes life-saving but can also injure the immature lung and other organs.

The examiner wants this core sentence:

In a ventilated preterm newborn, prolonged oxygen and pressure support can cause ventilator-induced lung injury, air leak syndromes, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, infection, hemodynamic compromise, airway injury, and neurodevelopmental complications.

The highest-yield neonatal complications are:

1. Air leak syndrome — especially pneumothorax
2. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) — chronic lung disease of prematurity
3. Ventilator-associated infection
4. Oxygen toxicity — lung injury and retinopathy of prematurity
5. Hemodynamic and cerebral complications — hypotension, intraventricular hemorrhage risk
6. Airway trauma — subglottic stenosis, tracheomalacia, vocal cord injury

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