Pioneering 'cold cap' saves baby from brain damage

[Al-khiyal]

November 26, 2007 -- Doctors have saved a newborn baby from developing a disability by using a pioneering cooling technique to chill her brain for three days.

Staff at St Michael's hospital in Bristol fitted Olivia Templar's head with a cooling cap after she was starved of oxygen for 10 minutes during a traumatic birth.

The helmet, designed in the US, was pumped with a coolant to reduce the swelling that occurs when tissue is deprived of oxygen. It is the swelling that causes brain damage.

Professor Marianne Thoresen, a paediatrician at St Michael's, was behind one of the research programmes that led to the development of the cap. She said more than 800 babies across the world had been involved in a 10-year trial of the technique.

St Michael's had tested the cap on 40 babies, and it had worked in most cases.

Thoresen said: "It is fantastic that, after trials, we know we now have a treatment that works. It is a big breakthrough that we now know that cooling a baby is better than not cooling a baby - but it does not work every time."

The baby's mother, Nichola Templar, 31, from Bristol, was induced in July, but Olivia got stuck in the birth canal five hours into labour. She eventually arrived, weighing 9lb 3oz, but had suffered a bump to the head.

Templar said: "They managed to revive her, but there were suggestions of brain damage. I remember the room being filled with doctors and nurses and doctors trying to get my baby out.

"I was in absolute agony, having only had gas and air the whole way through. When they eventually managed to get her out my husband, Daryl, looked at me and said 'I hope she is all right'.

"We didn't hear a sound from our baby as she was taken to a group of doctors waiting to work on her."

Olivia was sedated during the cooling treatment, and an MRI scan a few days later revealed that her brain function was normal and she was well enough to go home.

Now Templar has launched a campaign to raise money for the technology to be used nationwide. She said: "We believe the cooling cap saved her from disability. I want every child to have this help. We want to do whatever we can for St Michael's."

Thoresen, who began working on the research in 1992, began piloting the methods on babies at St Michael's in 1998. She said: "This cooling cap is one of at least four ways of keeping the baby cool. It is does not matter how you do it.

"Olivia is only three months old and while the treatment has worked well, it is far too early to say she is out of the woods. You cannot tell definitively whether a baby has cerebral palsy before she is two. But it does appear she has been very lucky."

A spokeswoman for United Bristol healthcare trust said the cooling system had become standard practice since St Michael's became the first hospital in the UK to use the technology in 1998.

Pioneering 'cold cap' saves baby from brain damage

[Cheba_Mami]

Bravo, they have prevented braindamage

[Bent_Bladi]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!! omg... that's so amazing... but so simple! we're always told to put ice to prevent swelling... sheesh - we should have thought of this before...

alhamdulilah

haha, talk about brain freeze , ice cream anyone?

[amalgamate]

I can relate to that.

The docs said that one main reason how my sister was able to survive drowning for 15 min when she was two was because of the cold temperature of pool water that kept the brain from getting irreversible damage.

(the second reason of her miraculous survival we know was from the devout prayers of our friends and family )

[Bent_Bladi]

really? i didn't know that....

why are these things always kept *hush hush*??

[amalgamate]

It was never necessary to bring up the details of her story. except maybe to someone who asked specifically about them.

there are a lot of details left out on how she gained back consciousness and learned how to sit up on her own, walk and talk alllll over again.

you should hear my mom as she tells the story and what she did to teach my sister. I was 6 at the time.

I don't remember much except short, vague glimpse of the past...

the slow motion of a herd of men rushing past me and out the back sliding door and my dad diving into the pool with all his clothes and shoes on. -not knowing that the little child under there was his own girl.

I then have a memory of the crying and yelling women in the living room.

Then I remember my other sisters and I spent a couple days of 'fun' at Khala Um Raghad's house and danced to 'He's a Cold-Hearted Snake!'

odd isn't it what we remember...

I think it was Eid at the time of the gathering and there were close to 50 or 60 ppl at that friend's house when my sister drowned.

[Bent_Bladi]

and it's funny how we still go to that house for eid...

well next time, ima ask specifically from yo sista