Cooling Babies May Help Brains
Chilling a newborn's entire body can help prevent or reduce brain damage caused by lack of oxygen during difficult births, research suggests.
However, experts say the results are too preliminary and in conflict with previous research for the treatment to be used outside of medical studies.
"Widespread application of brain cooling ... would be premature," Dr. Lu-Ann Papile, a neonatologist at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. She had no role in the study.
Between 60,000 and 80,000 of the 4 million babies born in the United States each year are at high risk of death or disability because of birth problems that deprive them of oxygen.
Cooling the body a few degrees — mild hypothermia — reduces the brain's need for oxygen and slows other processes that can lead to brain damage. The treatment helps adults recover after cardiac arrest, and animal studies suggest it might help babies deprived of oxygen.
A pilot study in newborns found no benefit. But the new study was the largest to test the technique. It was led by doctors at Wayne State University in Detroit, involved 15 children's hospitals around the country and was funded by the federal government.
Newborns were randomly assigned to get usual care or the hypothermia treatment. It involves placing the babies on a special blanket containing chilled water that lowers their temperature to 92.3 degrees for three days, then gradually rewarms them back to normal, around 98.6 degrees.
Babies were evaluated 18 to 22 months later.
Death or significant disability, such as cerebral palsy, occurred in only 45 of the 102 infants whose bodies were cooled, compared with 64 of the 103 babies who received normal care.
No significant side effects, such as heart rhythm problems, occurred with the treatment.
Two large studies are under way that within two years should better reveal the potential for hypothermia treatment, Papile wrote.