Physiologic growth and development of the lung during the first year of life

Pulmonary function tests were performed on a total of 125 healthy infants younger than 25 postconception (pc) months of age. Maximal expiratory flow at functional residual capacity (V̇maxFRC) was measured from partial expiratory flow-volume curves, and functional residual capacity (FRC) was measured by the helium dilution technique. There was a highly significant (p < 0.01) linear regression for both V̇maxFRC and FRC with increasing body length. The highest size-corrected flows (V̇maxFRC/FRC) were obtained in the healthy premature (2.7 FRC/s, n = 6) and full-term (2.5 FRC/s, n = 5) infants, and there was a relatively constant value between 13 and 25 pc months of age (1.2 FRC/s), which was similar to those reported in older children and adults. In an age-matched group of infants 10 to 16 pc months of age, females had both higher absolute flows (126 versus 102 ml/s, p < 0.03) and size-corrected flows (1.4 versus 1.0 FRC/s, p < 0.001) than did males. These physiologic data support the concepts that (1) neonates have proportionately larger airways relative to their lung volume at FRC, (2) infants have size-corrected flows similar to those in older children and adults, and (3) female infants have proportionately larger airways relative to their lung size than do male infants.