ABSTRACT
As pregnancy advances, the fetal lung faces a vital and an increasingly pressing problem. At the end of gestation it has to be able to adapt to air breathing within a few minutes of birth or the infant dies. Yet the lung has to develop and grow in a liquid environment right up to the point of delivery. All mammals, birds and reptiles are faced with the same problem – they all have to take a first breath and clear their lungs of liquid to establish adequate pulmonary gas exchange. This chapter deals with some of the physiological processes that enable the lung to make this dramatic and life-dependent adaptation at birth.
