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The intraosseous route (IOR) is a rehabilitated vascular access in emergency situations. Its indications and duration are defined, although the age limit at which it is usable is not clearly established.A 34-week-old preterm neonate, without infection, receiving gastric gavage, developed, at 8 days of life, a severe septic shock requiring ventilatory support and emergency volume expansion via a subclavian catheter. During the chest X-ray to check its position, the catheter was unfortunately pulled out. The child presented an acute desaturation with bradycardia, requiring bag ventilation and endotracheal epinephrine. The umbilical vein being unusable, an intraosseous access (20 G, distal hole, Cook) was performed at the upper tibial level to continue resuscitation and left in place for 14 hours to infuse antibiotics, inotropic support, blood products and colloids. Blood cultures grew Klebsiella pneumoniae. After a severe initial phase, course was favorable with normal examination at 3 years without complication of the IOR.To our knowledge, it is the youngest child in whom IOR was performed. For neonates and especially preterms, the site of puncture is just below the tibial superior tuberosity, otherwise there is a risk of fracture of the diaphysis. This risk justifies the control of the IOR by X-ray. The place of the IOR among emergency vascular accesses in neonates, seems to us to be reserved to situations when umbilical vein is unusable.Although no study compared IOR to superior longitudinal sinus access, we suggest to reserve the sinus access only when IOR has failed, because of its potential cerebral complications.

Improvement of the care to the neonate relys on an increased number of pediatricians in nurseries and adequate neonatal resuscitation training.A questionaire about the optimal modes of neonatal resuscitation training was sent to 132 pediatricians in charge of a neonatal unit or a neonatal intensive care unit. Response rate was 80.3%.The training program was targeted to be regional for the organization and for the evaluation. Nevertheless, 41% of answers also favored local evaluation. Duties in neonatal intensive care unit or transportation system, with differences among areas, were the proposed training choices. The pediatrician was considered to be the first person as an instructor and also as a learner in a multidisciplinary training program. Cooperation between primary and tertiary centers physicians was proposed as the best way for training. Proposed criteria for evaluating training efficacy included neonatal mortality and meconium aspiration syndrome rates. Government funding was suggested in 92% of answers.It seems necessary to perform a wide neonatal resuscitation training program. This multidisciplinary approach should be regional and follow the guidelines of the neonatal study group.

Intraosseous vascular access is a simple and very efficient technique for fluid and drug administration in any pediatric emergencies where the intravenous route is impossible or inadequate. Yet it remains unrecognized in France. Its pharmacokinetics is close to that of peripheral intravenous route, but it allows much greater infusion flow rates. In pediatric resuscitation it must be considered as the number one technique of intravascular access in infants, and rapidly as the first alternative after failure of attempt of intravenous route in children under 6. Provided that the technique is performed with careful asepsis, the risk of infectious complications is very low. However the intraosseous route must remain a transitory vascular access, and has to be stopped as soon as possible, its use never exceeding 24 hours.