|
New Study: Cooling Oxygen-Starved Babies Helps  Results of a promising new study with Houston connections show that lowering the body temperature of infants deprived of oxygen during birth reduces the chances of future disabilities and even death.
The study included 208 full term infants from across the country, with around 20 of them from Houston. All of the babies experienced severe oxygen deprivation during the birth process, and nearly half of them were wrapped in cooling blankets within 6 hours of birth. Their bodies were cooled to around 92 degrees and kept there for 72 hours, before they were gradually re-warmed. Dr. Jon Tyson is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical School here in Houston and was the lead researcher for the local portion of the study. He says compared to infants given traditional treatments, the results were impressive. "There was about a 28-percent reduction in the proportion of those children who either died or who at 18 months of age had signs of major disabilities," he says. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and reported by the Neonatal Research Network. Although still considered an experimental therapy, Dr. Tyson says the research is promising and could change the way oxygen-deprived babies are treated. "In my career, I think this is clearly the best hope for a major advance in the care of babies who have problems this severe. It's the first thing I think we've had that improves the chances of a good outcome substantially," he says. Don and Sally Keller are believers. They live in Richmond-area with their four children, including Lillian, who wasn't breathing and had no blood pressure or heart beat when she was born. Her neonatologist was able to revive and stabilize her and then suggested the cooling blanket study, telling her father that she was a prime candidate. "My question to him was one simple question, what's the downside and there wasn't any he said, there's no downside to this, only up," says Don Keller. "I signed the paper to go ahead and go for that and they Lifeflighted her from West Houston where she had been born to Memorial Hermann and put her on the cooling blanket for three days," he says. Now three-and-a-half years old, Lillian is in physical therapy for motor-skill difficulties, but has shown no signs of brain damage, with a normal personality and an above-average mental capacity. Don Keller says he thinks the cooling therapy is one reason why his daughter lived. "I am a firm believer in providence. I don't think things happen by accident or happenstance. I really believe that the blanket was very beneficial and is one of the reasons that we have her here today," says Keller. The study appears in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. |
|