[Perinatal assistance in the delivery room--reanimation of the newborn infant]

In most cases birth brings an infant who can rapidly adapt himself to a normal extra-uterine life. However, sometimes and most of all, in "high risk" cases, this infant needs a correct surveillance before and after the delivery in order to prevent morbidity and especially perinatal morbidity. Our actual knowledge, derived from the fantastic progress of Perinatalogy, demonstrates that, in order to assure the wanted end of the pregnancy, the only assistance of the delivery at hospital by a qualified obstetrician is not enough. It is necessary to have a continuous surveillance at the beginning of the pregnancy and during the pregnancy and a correct attention at the mother - foetus binomial during the labor and the delivery. That will permit the discovery of pre- para and post-natal factors, to undertake the prevention and to lower the number of perinatal mortality.