Reducing Costs and Saving Lives
April 10, 2018
Sick newborns often rely on a ventilator to supply oxygen, and are tethered by a plastic endotracheal tube (ETT). Often-times, this tube accidentally pops out. This represents the fourth most common complication experienced by newborns in NICUs. It can cause oxygen deficiency (hypoxia), high carbon dioxide levels in the blood, trauma to their airway, intraventricular hemorrhage, code ...
The P-Hack
April 10, 2018
It’s been said that statistics can be used to prove just about anything. Take, for example, one study that I recently read about, which examined the link between vegetarianism among pregnant women and an increased risk of drug and alcohol abuse among their children. The study examined over 5,000 women and their children, and finding that if their mothers ate little to no meat while ...
Working Towards the Elimination of Perinatal Hepatitis B Infection
April 10, 2018
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a serious illness in the newborn and young infant. The virus, first discovered in the mid-1960s, is transmitted through percutaneous (i.e., puncture through skin) or mucosal (i.e., direct contact with mucous membranes) exposure to infectious blood or body fluids. The virus is highly infectious, can be transmitted in the absence of visible blood, and ...
Unraveling Fragile X Syndrome
November 28, 2017
In 1943, Julia Bell and James Martin first described the sex-linked heritable condition now termed Fragile X Syndrome (FXS). In their paper, “A Pedigree of Mental Deficit Showing Sex-Linkage”, they described a single kindred in which eleven males spanning two generations exhibited mental deficiency. After detailed investigation, the researchers concluded that the condition was ...
