Acute cardiac care & resuscitationMeta-analysis
Initial vascular access for neonatal resuscitation: a systematic review
- systematic review
Authors' conclusion
Very low certainty evidence indicates that emergency UVC and IO access are feasible during neonatal resuscitation, but limited evidence on effectiveness, timeliness, and safety highlights the need for additional research.
Study context
- Population
- Newborn infants up to 28 days after birth or 44 weeks postmenstrual age requiring emergency vascular access during resuscitationarticles included (10 descriptive studies, 6 case reports) of 1381 identified · descriptive studies 10 · case reports 6
- Participants
- 16 participants
- Comparison
- emergency vascular access methods during resuscitation
Pooled result
As reported in the abstract
time to heart rate >100 bpm, time to successful placement of devices, successful vascular access at first attempt or number of attempts
- No studies directly compared vascular access methods for these outcomes
Further pooled results
Setting of use
- Umbilical vein catheters (UVC) used primarily after hospital birth; Intraosseous (IO) devices used in a wider range of settings
Peripheral vein catheters
- Evidence was insufficient to evaluate the use of peripheral vein catheters during neonatal resuscitation
Original publication
Initial vascular access for neonatal resuscitation: a systematic review. Resuscitation. Published 27 July 2026. doi:10.1016/j.resuscitation.2026.111226
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it