Weaning of nCPAP. How low do you go?

[Urban Rosenqvist]

Studies show that there are more benefits with weaning nCPAP by decreasing pressure than having alternating "time-on and time-off" nCPAP.

We wean by lowering the pressure gradually, in the preterm to as low as 2cm H20.

I know that many use 4cm H20 as a lower limit.

The argument for this is that the pressure measured in the pharynx is close to zero when CPAP is set lower than 4 cm H20 (thus believed to not have any positive effects).

Still, we see many babies that benefit from low pressure CPAP (2-3).

Do you know any studies that show negative effects using low pressures? (Theoretically, it could give increased breathing effort without any significant CPAP effect).

[rehman_naveed]

Adding to thread can someone tells me how much maximum pressure we can use on cpap

[Urban Rosenqvist]

Usually we use CPAP up to 7 but when we use BiPAP pressures are higher (9-10)

[Francesco Cardona]

Hi Urban, do you have some references on the CPAP weaning by pressure?

[Urban Rosenqvist]

Fcardona:

Some references...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22611116

http://neonatalresearch.org/2012/05/23/weaning-from-cpap-in-preterm-babies/