RESPIRATION

IN UNUSUAL
ENVIRONMENT
SUBMITTED BY
AISWARIA N VIJAYAN
 How do baby breathe in
womb?
• Babys dont breathe in the womb. Instead - rely on
their mother's breathing
• After 9 months - undergoes a complicated physical
transitions
• Baby's practice breathing in utero, their lungs aren't
used for breathing until they take their first breath
outside the womb.
• placenta and umbilical cord- helps baby to get
everything out needed from its mother. This includes
oxygen.
• Every breath that the mother takes brings oxygen into
her bloodstream.
• Blood carries oxygen to the placenta and then to the
umbilical cord to the baby.
• During weeks 10 and 11 of the pregnancy, the
developing fetus will start to inhale tiny bits of amniotic
fluid.
• This inhalation is more like swallowing movement.
• Help baby's lungs as they begin to develop.
• By the 32nd week of pregnancy a baby will began to
practice breath like movements- like swallowing and
involve compression and expanding the lungs.
• Breathing practice is a developmental milestone
• Baby's lungs are considered as mature at 36weeks.
• by then a baby has had at least four weeks of
breathing practice

•
• 40 week - the baby's body is ready to make the
transition out of the womb
• During labor, the mother's uterus will contract and
retract.
• The contractions serve to push amniotic fluid out of the
baby's lungs, preparing them to breathe.
• The seal between the baby and the outside breaks when
the mother's water breaks. The baby may get exposure
to oxygen during the birth process.
• But as long as the baby connected to its mother
placenta via the umbilical cord, it's not essential that
the baby try to breathe yet.
• Within a few moments after the birth, the baby will
take a sharp inhale and breathe for the first time on
their own.
• This inflation of the lungs brings oxygen to the baby's
blood stream without the mother's help for the first
time.
 Respiratory adaptations
• At birth the clamping of the umbilical cord signals the
end of the flow of oxygenated blood from the
placenta.
• For effective ventilation and tissue oxygenation:
 the neonate must clear the lungs of foetal lung fluid
 establish a regular pattern of breathing
 match pulmonary perfusion to ventilation.
Other factors, including
• pulmonary blood flow,
• surfactant production and
• respiratory musculature
also influence respiratory adaptation to extra-uterine life.
 A complete understanding of this process is still lacking
but some theories have emerged from work on foetal
lambs suggesting that
sodium reabsorption plays a key role
• In utero, the lung epithelium secretes fluid:
process which is essential to the normal growth
and development of the alveoli
• End of gestation, it gradually diminishes and
absorption of fluid begins
• factors implicated in the initiation of postnatal
breathing:
 decreased oxygen concentration,
increased carbon dioxide concentration
decrease in pH
which stimulate foetal aortic and carotid
chemoreceptors, triggering the respiratory centre in the
medulla to initiate respiration.
• Mechanical compression of the chest creates negative
pressure and drawing air into the lungs as the lungs
re-expand.
• New-borns cries:- Further expansion and distribution
of air throughout the alveoli
• Crying creates a positive intrathoracic pressure that
keeps alveoli open and forces the remaining foetal
lung fluid into pulmonary capillaries and the
lymphatic circulation.
 RESPIRATORY PROBLEMS
IN NEW BORN BABY

• Infant respiratory distress syndrome

• Sudden infant death syndrome(SIDS)
• Asphyxia neonatorum
 NEONATAL RESPIRATORY
DISTRESS SYNDROME (RDS)

• In Premature babies.
• Hard for the baby to breathe
• Lack of surfactant
• Surfactant - mixture of lipids, proteins and
glycoproteins which prevents the sticking together
and collapse of alveolar walls towards the end of
expiration.
 SUDDEN INFANT DEATH
SYNDROME
• Unexplained death
• Usually during sleep of a healthy baby less than a
year old.
• Also known as crib death
• Cause is unknown.
• Might be associated with defects in the portion of an
infant's brain that controls breathing and arousal from
sleep.
 ASPHYXIA NEONATORUM

• baby doesn't get enough oxygen during the birth

process.
• It can be fatal
• Common name: perinatal asphyxia or birth asphyxia
 RESPIRATION IN HIGH
ALTITUDE
Associated with some problems because of:
• Very low barometric pressure(atmospheric pressure)
• Insufficiency of oxygen
• Low partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen
Atmospheric pressure, and percentage and partial
pressure of atmospheric oxygen decreases with increase
in altitude.
• Decrease in atmospheric pressure often causes
dysbarism or decompression sickness
• Dysbarism: nitrogen and some other dissolved gases
bubble out from blood due to a sudden fall in their
pressure.
Results-
 severe body pain,
 musculature paralysis,
 unconsciousness, and even death.
• Common among deep divers and miners also, when
they suddenly come to the surface.
• Decrease in partial pressure of oxygen causes Arterial
Hypoxia- Hb can easily combine with oxygen only at
high po2. So the low po2 at higher altitudes adversely
affect uptake of oxygen by Hb, resulting in hypoxia
or anoxia
 Periodic breathing and mountain
sickness
• Caused by Prolonged and extreme hypoxia at high
altitude
• Periodic breathing -recurring pauses between
successive breaths.
• It reduces the breathing rate and the intake of oxygen.
• Mountain sickness or altitude sickness - group of
symptoms -appear when people reach great heights
either in mountaineering or in air travel.
• Cause- considerable shortage of oxygen in the
inspired air
• 2 Types: acute and chronic
• Acute: affects people for several days after arriving at
altitudes above 3000m
• Characterized by- mental fatigue, physical
exhaustion, hallucinations, drowsiness, giddiness,
unconsciousness, convolutions, headache, nausea,
vomiting, dyspnea, bluish skin, lips and nails.
• Some time leads to coma and death
• Chronic: results from long-term stay at high altitudes.
• Characterized by- fatigue, exercise intolerance etc.
 RESPIRATION DURING
DIVING
Major problems experienced –
• lack of oxygen availability at depths,
• difficulty for the elimination of carbon dioxide from
tissues,
• difficulty for the proper distribution of oxygen to
different parts,
• depletion of the oxygen storage and the resulting
hypoxia and anoxia,
• bradycardia or low heart rate,
• slow blood circulation to organs other than brain, heart
and adrenal glands,
• oxygen toxicity, and
• gas bubbling due to decompression sickness when the
animal ascend to the surface quickly.
 Adaptation
• Volume of blood is generally two times greater than
the non-divers.
• Many of them have high concentration of myoglobin
and high oxygen-storing capacity.
• circulatory and Respiratory adjustments occur to
ensure the proper distribution and maximum
utilization of oxygen
The danger of hypoxia or anoxia, encountered by under-
water animals is solved by
 Temporary storage and judicious use of oxygen, and
the capacity to deal with oxygen debt.
 At the beginning of diving, set of physiological
mechanisms get activated: Diving reflex
o Breathing stops and make use of the oxygen stored in
myoglobin
o Causes reduction in supply of oxygen to most of the
tissues
o As a result, heartbeat becomes weak and slow
o heart-rate falls to nearly one tenth of the normal rate
o total blood circulation gets considerably reduced and
blood pressure tends to drop
o Fall in blood pressure will be prevented by-
constriction of some blood vessels
o Partial construction of some and the total constriction
of other causes redistribution of blood -major share
goes to vital organs, such as heart and brain, which
can least withstand hypoxia.
• .

o Circulation to skin, muscle and viscera may get

sharply reduced
o This adaptive adjustments minimises the
utilization of oxygen.
o At the same time, it ensured a steady supply of
oxygen to organs which are highly sensitive to
hypoxia
o After some time, the oxygen store in the
myoglobin gets exhausted and muscles resort to
anaerobic metabolism
o leads to accumulation of lactic acid in muscles and the
building up of an oxygen debt.
o After sometime, the animal returns to the surface and
breathes in the air.
As a result:
• oxygen supply to tissues goes high,
• heart rate becomes normal,
• blood circulation to all parts increases,
• oxygen store in myoglobin steadily builds up,
• muscles return to aerobic metabolism,
• lactic acid get aerobically oxidised and
• oxygen debt is repaid
END