Pre term babies to be covered with cold blankets
Posted on: 17/Nov/2018 2:27:26 PM
A new study concludes the replacement of warm blankets with cold blankets for pre-term babies. The new result from the study is against the traditional form of wrapping up babies with warm blankets. Along with the cold blanket three doses of commonly used anti-epileptic adult drug topiramate can prevent brain injury or seizures said the newly conducted study.
Babies that were born less than 32 weeks of gestations and most of the times under 1.4 kg of weight the use of topiramate along with standard traditional care reduces the risk of developmental disorders said the research doctors in this study. Yet the use of such powerful medicine is not approved and so further study should be conducted to confirm the conclusion of the current study said the sources. The use of topiramate may lead to prevention of brain injury but keeping the size of the baby it may lead to some opposite reactions. All of these factors should be taken into account before starting the practice officially in health care centers.
A total of 103 premature infants were used for the study based in Chennai administering three doses of topiramate. The drug is said to be reducing the programmed cell death of brain cells controlling future brain damages in babies. Also the babies will be benefitted if wrapped with a cold blanket said the study unit.
With this new study the long term neurological problems like cerebral palsy and epilepsy can be resolved said the core team of the study. However only 10 percent of Children may probably affected by any kind of brain defects and so the usage of drug should be carefully analyzed before implementing it for all premature babies.
The medicine works like a neural blockage preventing the destruction of brain cells that may not regenerate again for a while. But many of the cells in under-development stage can regenerate within some years in babies. Anyway the study revealed that the drug induced children were cognitively bright and smart compared to the children group who were subjected to traditional treatment. The research is not path breaking still to conclude completely about the results. Similar studies should be conducted without experimenting medicines on babies with advanced technologies. Differentiating groups of babies for a particular study is not morally correct. A possible intervention and examination is needed before concluding anything that can affect babies with the risk of unwanted medications.
