Premature Babies Treatment
A groundbreaking ‘brain-rinsing’ therapy is being employed for saving the precious little lives of scores of premature babies in the United Kingdom.
The method is employed for eliminating accruement of potentially detrimental fluids from the brains of premature babies that harms brain development or prove lethal.
Neonatologist Andrew Whitelaw along with paediatric neurosurgeon from the North Bristol NHS Trust have developed the new-fangled treatment which for the foremost occasion has proved beneficial to the vastly vulnerable, prematurely born babies.
A clinical study conducted has shown that a novel method wherein the infant’s brain is washed with fresh fluid was noted to offer immense hope. The study outcomes revealed that 27 from the 38 infants faced fatality or had severe disablement when the benchmark therapy was employed in comparison to the 21 from 39 infants who had undergone the brain rinse treatment. Infants who survived due to the rinse treatment additionally exhibited lesser rates of cognitive disabilities and had better scoring on a cerebral development indicator.
Method known as DRIFT (Drainage, Irrigation and Fibrinolytic Therapy) or ventricular lavage treatment comprises of placing duo tubes inside the brain of premature babies. One of the tubes is employed for continually draining out the fluid that exerts pressure on the brain, whereas the other fluid allows clear fluid in flowing in with the general outcome gradually decompressing the brain, till the time the method is concluded. The tubes are removed at the end of the 3-day lasting rinse out procedure.
Often several premature babies within hours following delivery suffer from life-menacing haemorrhages in their brain. The ventricles present in the brain begin filling up with CSF (cerebro-spinal fluid) and blood, leading to condition called as hydrocephalus, wherein fluid accruement lead to pressure build up in the brain.
The standard course of therapy comprises of repeated insertion of needles inside the head or spine for draining out fluid. Subsequent to 2-3months, permanent insertion of the shunt is done that connected the abdomen and brain. However, the therapy has risks inclusive of abrupt blockage and infections developing.
The randomized trial printed in the ‘Pediatrics’ medical journal has been backed by James and Grace Anderson Trust and the Cerebra. The researchers are hopeful that this rinse out therapy could prove to be an effectual therapy for little ones who especially are at risk of developing bleeding as in the second trimester of pregnancy; the unborn baby possesses several frail blood vessels in the core of the brain. Such blood vessels have been observed to shrivel by the final gestational term and bleeding is atypical among infants at forty weeks.