Controlled administration of oxygen with self inflating resuscitation bags

Resuscitation bags were originally developed to ventilate patients under emergency conditions. Under circumstances where oxygen is available one should make full use of it. The problem of exact air enrichment for these bags has not been satisfactory solved until now. Therefore a system has been developed which furnishes controlled delivery of FIO2 during ventilation with self inflating resuscitation bags. This is obtained via a venturi device connected to the air inlet of the manual resuscitation bag. The FIO2 delivered to the patients from a self inflating bag was tested for values of 24, 30, 40 and 50% oxygen. The new system proved to be capable to delivery exact FIO2 in contrast with previously applied methods of oxygen delivery where this could never be achieved.