Maternal cocaine alters eupneic ventilation but not gasping of neonatal rats.

In severe hypoxia, normal eupneic respiration is replaced by gasping. Gasping provides for 'autoresuscitation' such that, if air is available, normal breathing returns. As maternal use of cocaine may increase the incidence of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), prenatal exposure to cocaine was hypothesized to result in a failure of gasping in the newborn. Cocaine was administered daily to pregnant rats. In the newborn, no impairment of gasping as a mechanism of autoresuscitation was detected. However, on the first and second days after birth, ventilation in hypoxia was less in newborns having exposure to cocaine than in the control rats. Maternal use of cocaine may retard the development of the ventilatory control system. However, gasping mechanisms are not included in this retardation.