A study of breathing pattern and ventilation in newborn infants and adult subjects

Experimentally modified breathing pattern in human subjects, by varying the inspired gas mixture or administering different neuromodulators, has been studied extensively in the past, yet unmodified breathing has not. Moreover, most data refer to infants during sleep and adults during wakefulness. We studied the baseline breathing pattern of preterm infants [n= 10; GA 30 (27–34) wk (median, range)]; term infants [n= 10; GA 40 (39–41) wk)], and adult subjects [n= 10; age 31 (17–48) y)] during quiet sleep. A flow‐through system was used to measure ventilation. We found: (i) instantaneous ventilation was 0.273 ± 0.006, 0.200 ± 0.003, and 0.135 ± 0.002 Lmin‐1.kg‐1 in preterm, term infants, and adult subjects; the coefficients of variation were 39%, 25%, and 14% (p