History of neonatal resuscitation. Tales of heroism and desperation.

Although the history of neonatal resuscitation is as old as medicine itself, today's standards of practice evolved over the past 40 years. Most ancient physicians and midwives did know that stimulation and expansion of lungs was needed to revive the "apparently dead" newborn, but the means of providing these 'therapies' varied from brutal shaking, hitting, swinging, electrocuting, hanging upside-down to applying gentle pressures or squeezing of the chest. It would take centuries of development in physiological concepts and technology for the evolution of a rational approach in resuscitating the newborn infant. Even after great advances in medical science in the 19th century, cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques remained primitive until the mid-1950s. In this article the author has traced some elements of cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques and developed an outline of the history of neonatal resuscitation.