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Grunting in newborns is accepted widely as a sign of frank or impending respiratory distress despite little supporting evidence. Therefore, the authors studied the frequency and outcome of newborns with grunting respirations.
The study sample comprised all newborns admitted to a well-baby nursery of a U.S. university hospital during a 2-month period. Of these 466 newborns, 81 (17.4 percent) had grunting respirations during the first 4 hours of life. Of these, 78 began grunting within the first 30 minutes of life, and 54 also stopped grunting within the first 30 minutes. Of all the grunting newborns, another 14 stopped grunting between 30 and 60 minutes of life, and 5 more (total, 93.5 percent) stopped grunting between 60 and 90 minutes. Only…