New Neuro NICU at Packard Children’s Specializes in Neurology Care for Babies at Risk for Brain Injury

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Protecting the brain health of premature and dangerously ill newborns is the focus of an ambitious new effort at Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital. On April 23, the hospital launched a new Neuro NICU that will provide specialized neurology care for babies at risk for brain injury.

The Neuro NICU at Packard Childrens, consisting of six beds inside the Packard Childrens neonatal intensive care unit, will be one of just a small handful of such units around the country. These units represent advances in treatments and technologies that allow physicians not only to keep fragile babies alive, but reduce their risk of suffering neurological problems.

Survival rates of critically ill premature and term babies are now quite robust, but we are realizing that some of these surviving babies have developmental problems, said Packard Childrens neonatologist Krisa Van Meurs, MD, medical director of the Neuro NICU. Fortunately, Van Meurs added, new neurologic research has provided a diverse set of tools for improving vulnerable infants developmental outcomes and giving them the best chance at starting strong in life.

Several conditions can leave infants susceptible to brain injury or developmental deficits, including premature birth, early-life infections, birth defects such as congenital heart defects, and oxygen deprivation during labor and delivery. These patients have the greatest need for the Neuro NICU teams expertise.

The challenge and exciting thing about treating these tiny babies is that the brain is developing on a literally day-by-day basis, said Courtney Wusthoff, MD, Packard Childrens neonatal neurologist. Wusthoff arrived at Packard Childrens in September 2012 to help launch the Neuro NICU.

In addition to bringing Wusthoff on board, the hospital has purchased a wide array of new diagnostic and monitoring equipment for babies brains, and is providing specialized training for all its NICU practitioners on the latest research and treatments in infant neurology. The options for protecting and nurturing babies quickly changing brains are expanding rapidly, Wusthoff said. We have more and more opportunities for interventions.

In early 2012, the Thomas family of San Jose benefited from several such interventions after their younger sons unexpectedly difficult birth at a hospital in San Jose. When she arrived in labor, Heather Thomas was found to have suffered a placental abruption. The baby was not getting any oxygen and needed to be delivered immediately. Upon delivery, baby Jackson did not breathe. He had a seizure within one minute of birth.

After Jackson was resuscitated, a physician asked Heather and husband Gary to consider immediately transferring their son to Packard Childrens to receive controlled hypothermia, a recently developed treatment for preventing brain injury after oxygen deprivation. In this procedure, the infant is placed on a blanket impregnated with tubes that carry cool water. The babys body is cooled to 33.5 degrees Celsius for three days. Research conducted at Packard Childrens and elsewhere has shown that, if begun within six hours of birth, cooling slows damaging metabolic processes and gives the brain time to heal.

Until relatively recently, we could only provide supportive care for full-term babies who suffered brain injury in the labor process, Van Meurs said. About 25 percent of neonatal mortality is due to birth asphyxia, so controlled hypothermia has the potential to have a big impact. Packard Childrens participated in one of the earliest clinical trials of hypothermia, and has offered it since 2000, she noted.

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New Neuro NICU at Packard Children’s Specializes in Neurology Care for Babies at Risk for Brain Injury