1. ¹Department of Pediatrics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
2. ²Department of International Health, School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Correspondence: Dr D Vidyasagar, Department of Pediatrics, University Of Illinois at Chicago, 840 South Wood Street, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. E-mail: dsagar@uic.edu

Received 11 January 2008; Accepted 28 January 2008; Published online 13 March 2008.

Abstract

First and last breaths define the life span of a living animal including humans. Humans have been fascinated more with the last breath—the death. Neonatologists are focused on initiating the first breath. Millions of babies around the world do not have a chance of survival beyond a few moments after birth for lack of successful initiation of their first breath. Both neonatologists and other health care providers work hard to separate the last breath from the first breath using resuscitative measures thanks to the NRP developed and propagated two decades ago. This paper is dedicated to the initiators of the program, and all those dedicated health care teams working around the globe to save newborn lives.