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Previous Volume 348:2364-2365 June 5, 2003 Number 23 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: Minkoff and Chervenak (March 6 issue)¹ have omitted mention of a substantial, life-threatening risk associated with elective primary (and repeated) cesarean delivery. Bland² and others³ have demonstrated that labor offers great benefits for the transition of the fetal lungs from fluid-secreting intrauterine organs to fluid-absorbing, air-breathing, extrauterine ones. A change from chloride excretion to sodium absorption by the pulmonary epithelium, mediated by -adrenergic receptors, results in lungs that are far less susceptible to fluid retention, airway compression (by fluid "cuffs" around bronchioles), and air trapping — transient tachypnea of the newborn.

Although this condition is usually benign, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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