Description

A full-term newborn boy was admitted to the high dependency unit at the age of 4 hours with signs of respiratory distress, tachypnoea and recession with low oxygen saturation. There was no perinatal history of concerns; delivery was normal and uneventful, but the mother was colonised with Group B streptococcus.

A plan was made on admission for a chest X-ray, a nasogastric tube (NGT) insertion and antibiotics. NGT was placed by a senior neonatal nurse without incident, followed by chest X-ray primarily looking for respiratory causes of the respiratory distress. This however revealed that the NGT was malposed into the right main bronchus (figure 1). There were …