Delivery room resuscitation past, present, and the future.

Delivery room resuscitation guidelines evolved in the late 1980s in the United States, based largely on clinical experience with some supportive experimental evidence. Subsequently over time, there has been an increasing emphasis toward the practice of evidence-based medicine. Despite difficulties in conducting research in the delivery room, several large randomized studies have been undertaken over the past two decades that have provided a scientific basis for some of the new guidelines.