In this article, they had talked about how they "froze" a baby, to save it's life.The baby had a heart rate of about 300 beats per minute, nearly double the normal 160. The baby, Edward, was born with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) and was given a five percent chance of survival. SVT is caused by improper electrical impulses in the heart that leads to an irregular rapid heartbeat heart, which then can lead to heart failure or affect internal organs. When the heart beats too quickly, it can’t fill up properly and then distribute blood to vital organs correctly. Hours after little Edward was born, his heart started racing again. Doctors tried shocking his heart and giving him different medications. None of those those treatments worked so they tried something new; lowering the body temperature to slow the heart rate. They had succeded, but a few hours later his little heart sped up again. They tried it one more time, but very very slowly brought his temperature back up. His body temperature got as low as 91 degrees. When they were bringing his budy temperature back to normal, they raised the temperature 1 degree, every 12 hours. They had kept little Edward afterwards for another month just to be safe, and then he got to go home. Now little Edward is a happy, healthy little boy.
So, just to get this out there, they techincally didn't even "freeze" the baby... They just brought the temperature down, as if he was just cold. Im really happy though that they were able to do this and save little Edward, and his parents from grief. Hopefully, this will help start a new treatment to help save children with SVT.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/02/15/to-save-newborn-doctors-freeze-baby/
No comments:
Post a Comment