Evaluation of cerebral autoregulation of oxygen by NIRS method during postnatal transition period in term and late preterm newborns without resuscitation requirement.

In late preterm infants similar to term infants, arterial oxygen saturation and cerebral tissue oxygen saturation increased with time, but inverse reduction of cerebral fractional tissue oxygen extraction showed the presence of an active autoregulation in the brain. This can be interpreted as the ability of the brain to protect itself from hypoxia by regulating oxygen uptake during normal fetal-neonatal transition process. A larger scale multi-center randomized control trial is now needed to further inform practice.