Premature Infants

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned parents and physicians against giving the thickening agent SimplyThick to premature infants. The product is frequently added to thin foods, such as breast milk or infant formula, to make them easier to ingest for people who have swallowing difficulties. But the agency said it has recently received 15 reports of infants who received the product developing necrotizing enterocolitis, with two deaths. Necrotizing enterocolitis is a life-threatening condition characterized by inflammation and the death of intestinal tissue.

Most of the infants who die in neonatal intensive care units are ending their short lives peacefully, a new study suggests. Not long ago, the reverse was true. In the late 1980s, most of the infants who died in NICUs were given CPR and other heroic – often invasive – measures right up to their last moments. Fewer than 20% died because their treatment was withdrawn, studies have established. A decade later, withdrawal of treatment preceded about 40% of all NICU deaths, according to other studies.

A premature baby girl who weighed 12 ounces at birth Aug. 3 has reached the 1-pound milestone but remains in critical condition, a hospital spokesman said Thursday. Sheyanne Welch, who was delivered in her mother's sixth month of pregnancy, has gained about 4 ounces, said Dennis Gaschen at Martin Luther Hospital. The baby "has not tolerated feedings, so the weight she has gained has been through (intravenous feedings). For her to be gaining weight is a very good sign."

With the FDA warning parents not to feed milk or formula mixed with SimplyThick to premature babies, consumers are likely curious about what’s in the thickening product -- not to mention the condition to which it’s been linked. The FDA announced Friday that 15 infants who had been given the product developed a life-threatening intestinal condition known as necrotizing enterocolitis, and that two have died. The thickener helps those with swallowing problems keep their food down.

Rory Clark still gets goose bumps talking about a moment two years ago when he heard the news: His daughter, Jennifer, a premature baby with respiratory disease syndrome (RDS), had been chosen for a new treatment with a rare and experimental substance. Doctors "were literally drawing names out of a box," Clark said. Then one came "waving a card saying 'She's going to get it! She's going to get it!'

Fifty-one years and four months ago, Jeff Tanksley was lying in a blanket-lined drawer in the glow of a single light bulb, fighting for his life. All 26 1/2 ounces of him. Born three months premature, he created a sensation at Downey Community Hospital, where doctors and nurses--and reporters--hovered over the tiniest infant to be born up to that time in the hospital. They couldn't do much else. It was 1940 and the medical specialty that has come to be called neonatology was unknown.

The Food and Drug Administration today approved a drug, Exosurf Neonatal, that could help save thousands of premature infants born with immature lungs. The drug, a powder mixed with sterile water, substitutes for a naturally occurring foam that coats the inside of the lungs and keeps them from collapsing when the infant exhales. The infants receive the drug through a tube into their windpipes. They must be on a mechanical ventilator to receive it.

Some premature infants under the age of 6 months suffer breathing problems and a severe loss of oxygen in the blood when placed in automobile restraint seats, a new study has found. Dr. Lynne Willett, a pediatrician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, conducted the study "after hearing so many stories from mothers who said their babies turned blue or fainted when they put them into the seats."

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that it has authorized widespread use of an experimental drug to treat hyaline membrane disease, a serious respiratory ailment that is one of the leading causes of death and disability in premature infants. In 1963, the disease killed 2-day-old Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, a baby boy born to President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy. The condition, also known as respiratory distress syndrome, afflicts about one in five premature infants in the United States.

With the FDA warning parents not to feed milk or formula mixed with SimplyThick to premature babies, consumers are likely curious about what’s in the thickening product -- not to mention the condition to which it’s been linked. The FDA announced Friday that 15 infants who had been given the product developed a life-threatening intestinal condition known as necrotizing enterocolitis, and that two have died. The thickener helps those with swallowing problems keep their food down.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned parents and physicians against giving the thickening agent SimplyThick to premature infants. The product is frequently added to thin foods, such as breast milk or infant formula, to make them easier to ingest for people who have swallowing difficulties. But the agency said it has recently received 15 reports of infants who received the product developing necrotizing enterocolitis, with two deaths. Necrotizing enterocolitis is a life-threatening condition characterized by inflammation and the death of intestinal tissue.

A simple, safe, relatively inexpensive hormone treatment might help some high-risk pregnant women carry their babies longer, a new study  suggests, while improving the outlook for their infants. Such a treatment has been long sought. Even better, the newest one would appear unlikely to cost $690 a dose — unless drug makers are slow learners. Federal researchers, working with colleagues at 44 medical centers, found that administering vaginal progesterone to women with a short cervix — a risk factor for premature delivery — cuts the rate of delivering before 33 weeks by 45%. The reduction applies only to women with a short cervix (between 1 centimeter and 2 centimeters)

Reaching from Los Angeles to Yerevan, local doctors are healing the eyes of Armenian infants who otherwise would go blind. In June, the doctors performed surgeries at a neonatal clinic in the Armenian capital, delivered key equipment and trained about 200 Armenian doctors in how to treat retinopathy of prematurity. The illness strikes premature infants whose eyes have not developed enough to be exposed to the outside environment, said Dr. Thomas Lee, director of the Retina Institute at the Vision Center at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, which partnered with the Armenia Eye Care Project on the mission.

Snow and ice were making the narrow lanes and sharp curves of the Pennsylvania Turnpike even more treacherous than usual. Built for easygoing roadsters, the highway lacked the necessary shoulders and lane width to guarantee safe passage for time-pressed 18-wheelers; a fragile metal rail in the slim median was all that separated the vehicles hurtling in opposite directions. But the ambulance driver was careful and experienced. Mindful of the urgency of our mission, he maneuvered through the speeding traffic with professional skill, barely jostling me as I prepared an infant incubator, oxygen tanks and resuscitation equipment.

Infants born prematurely are much more likely to die during childhood and, if they survive, much less likely to have children of their own in adulthood, according to the largest study of prematurity ever undertaken. Researchers already knew that premature infants faced many neurological and developmental problems, but the findings reported today indicate that the spectrum of problems is even broader than suspected and persists throughout the child's lifetime.

Inhaled nitric oxide can significantly reduce lung and brain damage in many premature infants, allowing them to be taken off respirators sooner and sent home earlier, two studies report today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The treatment may not help the most premature and sickest babies, but it can provide long-lasting benefits for many others, according to the clinical trials involving more than 1,400 premature infants.

For years, doctors operated on premature babies without anesthesia in the belief that even if the infants felt the pain, they would not remember it. New research with rats suggests that the body does remember the pain and is forever changed. A study using newborn rats at the National Institutes of Health found that painful trauma that mimics medical procedures commonly performed on premature infants caused the rats to become much more sensitive to pain as they grew older.

For twins Andrew and Amber, the first 15 months of life have been hard. Born nine weeks early and weighing a bit more three pounds each, they spent their first six weeks in intensive care at Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles. The next five months, although at home, they were hooked up to monitors with alarms because their prematurity made them susceptible to heart and respiratory illnesses.

Many low birth-weight infants can be saved from blindness caused by a form of retinopathy if pediatricians start treating them aggressively early in the course of their disease, according to a major new government study. Because the course of the disease can be highly variable, doctors have previously delayed treatment until significant progression has been observed. But a study of 317 newborns at 26 U.S.

For years, doctors operated on premature babies without anesthesia in the belief that even if the infants felt the pain, they would not remember it. New research with rats suggests that the body does remember the pain and is forever changed. A study using newborn rats at the National Institutes of Health found that painful trauma that mimics medical procedures commonly performed on premature infants caused the rats to become much more sensitive to pain as they grew older.