Stefan Johansson

This article in NY Times came on my radar, written by a parent whom is also an obstetrician. Very well written piece and I would really recommend it. Sparkles a lot of thoughts on what we do, what we achieve, and the parental perspective. Find the article here: https://parenting.nytimes.com/newborn/prematurity-baby-burden

@M C Fadous Khalife I tend to agree, but in infants on non-invasive ventilation or in cases with no support at all but with resp distress and the x-ray shows pneumo, I have good experience. In those "lighter" cases, needle thoracocentesis is def something reducing thoracic drains, in my experience Check this ref out https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29799982

The new buzz word in health care is “innovation”. Which is a good thing! I have been in the ecosystem of innovation since 2016 with the startup company Neobiomics and the ProPrems® product, in the Innovation Incubator at Karolinska Institutet (KI DRIVE). There we meet with other startup companies, and we share several of the challenges of operating in the interface between innovation and “traditional” health care. Here's a few thoughts. Innovation can only benefit patients through implementation For innovations to reach out and bring value, implementation is key. No matter how brilliant an idea, it needs to be brought to life in an open-minded culture, where learning and change are core values. Health care can be conservative and resistive to change, and that may slow down, discourage or even hinder implementation. Eminence-based medicine vs evidence-based medicine I am a strong advocate of evidence-based medicine myself, but health care is still influenced a fair bit by “eminence-based medicine”. High-profile people may tell how they “feel” or “believe”. While feelings and beliefs are essential parts of the human nature, they are (IMHO) insufficient arguments in discussions about evidence. Innovations backed by evidence may not “feel right” if they change current practice. But we need to trust data, or else there is little point of doing research. (Too?) many stakeholders Health care is a complex structure, with a lot of stakeholders. While patients are more empowered now than ever before, there are a lot of “layers” between an innovation and a patient. Implementation involves staff, informal leaders, heads of departments, pharmacies, management teams, professional bodies, policymakers etc. As a consequence, implementation takes time. It can take more time than patients should need to tolerate. What to do? To take words to action, health care needs to embrace a culture of learning and change, or else “innovation” will be no more than a buzz word Research data is a valid starting point for change Innovators travel with light luggage, and need a complementary decision-making process in health care, not to delay the benefits and value that innovation bring patients With best regards from the Department of Brilliant Ideas

+1 Here the URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/jp2017140

@all - here is the URL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3g3Gs_HiffehrdWiivKReg @Nathan Sundgren - also consider to share your videos directly here too, just start a topic in a forum, write a sentence or two and copy/paste the Youtube URL and it will embed automatically

Check out this great lecture by @Nathan Sundgren about recent advances in neonatal resuscitation, i.e. sustained inflation and minimal-invasive surfactant therapy.

Difficult scenario, I must admit have no personal experience. But if I'd get the phone call from the ambulance and asked for advice it would something like this - "Keep the warmer but stop ventilation. Keep everything else as is and we arrange with extubation, catheters out, cleaning/dressing etc when you and the parents has arrived safely here" Warmer and stopped ventilation - I would feel disrespectful towards the infant if he/she got cold and also to keep on ventilating. I would consider the actual death time as is (during transport) but I would feel really bad if the parents would not present when the body of the infant is taken care off after death.

Our product (Peyona) is for both oral and iv use. in the past, our generic product manufact by the pharmacy was also for both routes of admin. suggest you crosscheck with your pharmacy before using it iv, just to be sure it is not only made for oral admin

@cB23 we dont use Morfin since quite some years but fentanyl as analgetic during intub. even for LISA we give a small dose to reduce assumed pain of the laryngoskopy

Thanks for sharing this great post!

@nashwa Would be great to hear the experience by for example @Francesco Cardona , I work in a NICU with ≥28w infants now. As I understand from level3 colleagues, nCPAP with relatively high pressures is the primary mode of respiratory support, and LISA the method to give surfactant, while nCPAP is ongoing. This is said to be a successful strategy for a surprisingly large proportion of the very immature infants (also ~24-25wk), but I don't have numbers or first-hand experience myself. I have even heard discussions that staff worry about intubation skills, and how those skills are trained/kept when only a minority of ELBW infants needs intubation and invasive ventilation. A new world!

Do you refer to the 2019 European Consensus guidelines on RDS? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30974433

This would be my take - if the infant seems perfectly well, I would not worry too much. On the other hand, if there are some minor clinical signs/symtom (like some reduction in muscle tone, not perfectly normal feeding behaviour etc-etc), I'd be suspicious and probably do some basic lab workup and then refer for clinical followup with the community pediatrician (and then he/she refers back in case of increased suspicion of congenital disease)

I found this link, have not looked at it in detail but maybe a starting point, and with a video https://www.jove.com/video/58990/protocol-guidelines-for-point-care-lung-ultrasound-diagnosing

Too bad to hear about that, back in the days I was a member on NICU-net. Have seen many new registrations here, maybe that's the reason, that NICU-net participants re-direct to 99nicu. I think (IMHO) that we can offer a good alternative for online communication within the "global village of neonatal medicine"

For those of you having follow-up clinics with children born preterm and affected by BPD, check out these European guidelines. A very thorough document. In short, most recommendations (screen shot below) are graded as low or even very low evidence. So there are lots of room for good research! Find the full document here (and yes, it is available as open-access): http://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.00788-2019

We measure axillary temps (most often parents do it )

We also practise some manipulation in preterm infants but only if otherwise well (preterm infants with functional GI problems) - if we suspect NEC, manipulation is a no-no. This practise is usually not a doctor's decision, usually nursing staff decide to do this if they believe it helps.

I get in touch

Found this discussion on Researchgate! Did not know they also had a forum there. Lots of good comments. I was taught during my training that reducing dead space is the reason for vittring tubes. But as pointed out, the volume of the cut tub piece is so small that it would have no practical significance, even for an ELBW infant. But I still do it, it is in my ”auto-pilot”... https://www.researchgate.net/post/Will_it_be_better_to_cut_the_ET_tube_a_few_centimeters_after_tube_is_in_place_and_then_place_the_connector

@bimalc good point about as to whether a surgeon would be consulted. We always discuss those cases with the surgeons, they want to keep updated and don't like to be surprised if there is a deterioration (and we really need them...) In my experience, those we work with are not liberal with interventions, so consultations do not "complicate" the management. But I suppose this may well be a possibility that more surgical consultations also "drive" the rate of surgical interventions. Would be great from other members about this!

Although the photo is a bit low-pixelated, it looks like rather extensive intramural gas, i.e. NEC. Suggest stopping feeds, TPN and antibiotics. Follow the clinical course and consult your ped surgeon.

Good question! This systematic review on heart rates in children clearly shows the decline: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3789232/ To be honest, I don't know exactly the underlying mechanisms behind, but I suppose it may be related to both the autonomic drive (symp/parasymp), and that HR is a more important factor for cardiac output during infancy than later in life. Anyone else knowing more of basic physiology than I do ?