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BWH’s smallest patients have access to state-of-the-art high tech advances in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), including whole body hypothermia treatment and an MRI compatible isolette, that ensure they receive the best possible care.
“We have almost 8,000 births a year at the Brigham, and we are the largest birthing center in New England,” said Robert Insoft, MD, medical director of the NICU. “We need to make sure we offer the most cutting edge, sophisticated and compassionate care to our most fragile patients and their families.”
One of the new technologies is whole body hypothermia, utilizing a computer-controlled cooling blanket that provides life-saving care for infants who sustained hypoxic events around the time of their delivery. Infants are placed on the blanket, which keeps them at a temperature of 33 degrees Celsius for up to three days, in order to slow down the body’s negative chemical reactions to the loss of oxygen.
“If we can slow these reactions or stop them, we can possibly prevent life-long neurologic damage that occurs because of the lack of oxygen,” said Insoft.
A team of nurses, physicians and respiratory therapists were trained on the new technology, which the NICU began using over a year ago. “Already, we’ve used the blanket for two critically ill infants, and we know it has made a positive difference for them,” Insoft said.
The NICU received some of the funds for the hypothermia/cooling blanket treatment from the Miracle Mia Foundation, which was established by Boston sports radio talk show host Glenn Ordway and his wife Sarah. Their daughter Mia was born at BWH in 2008 with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, an injury caused by lack of oxygen or blood to the brain. The BWH NICU did not have this treatment available then, so Mia underwent three days of cooling at Children’s Hospital, the only hospital in the region with this technology at the time.
“This cooling blanket technology enables us to care for these patients here at the Brigham, which is what’s best for them and their families,” Insoft said.
The cooling unit isn’t the only innovative technology helping infants in the NICU.
In a collaborative effort between Partners and Children’s Hospital, an MRI-compatible isolette specially designed for use with premature infants is helping care providers and minimizing risk to premature babies who need to have MRI scans.
“One goal of the system is to eliminate the need for risky transfers,” said Ellen Grant, MD, a pediatric neuroradiologist at Children’s Hospital Boston. “With older equipment, when an infant needs an MRI, he or she is transferred from the bed to the isolette and then to the MRI scanner. With the new equipment, the entire isolette slides into the MRI scanner.”
The isolette has a second benefit, too.
“Another advantage to only moving the babies once is that they are much more stable when they are being scanned because they aren’t being moved around as much,” explained Insoft. “As a result, we obtain better data and images.”
The isolette was custom built for BWH, MGH and Children’s Hospital, with input from Insoft, Grant, and Omar Khwaja, MD, PhD, also of Children’s Hospital Boston. It will be housed primarily at the Brigham, which has the largest population of premature infants of the three hospitals.
Insoft and Grant are currently working to create MRI coils that adapt to the size of a premature infant’s brain. Commercial coils, which are found in MRI machines, produce radiowaves that help create the picture that forms the MRI reading. The smaller sized coils fit closer to infants’ heads, and therefore closer to their brains, allowing for better imaging.