Exploratory analysis of heart rate changes in newborns to investigate the effectiveness of bag-mask ventilation

Neonatal mortality due to birth asphyxia in low-resource countries is a global problem. During the first minutes immediately after birth, healthcare personnel need to resuscitate non-breathing babies by effective positive pressure ventilations. Currently, an increase in heart rate is thought to be the most important indicator of successful manual bag-mask ventilation. ECG and ventilation signals were detected and parameterized into relevant information to explore the relationship between changes in heart rate and different possible determinant factors for beneficial ventilation. A data analysis approach is proposed to identify the relationships between these signal characteristics and heart rate changes. Several associations between characteristics of ventilation parameters and changes in heart rate were identified.