Neonatal back transport: perspectives from parents of Medicaid-insured infants and providers.

Purpose: To examine parents' and health care providers' perceptions of back transport from a tertiary care neonatal intensive care unit to a community hospital.

Design: Qualitative, hypothesis-generating, cross-sectional study utilizing focus group methodology.

Sample: Participants included 12 parents of back-transported infants insured by Medicaid, 6 regional NICU health care providers, and 17 community hospital special care nursery health care providers.

Mechanisms of ventilator-induced lung injury in premature infants.

Mechanical ventilation in premature infants may injure the lungs or exacerbate the pre-existing condition that led to the need for mechanical ventilation. Ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) may be associated with alveolar structural damage, pulmonary oedema, inflammation, and fibrosis. This injury is not uniform and is associated with surfactant dysfunction.