Archives of Disease in Childhood. Fetal and Neonatal Edition articles from September 2003

Archives of Disease in Childhood. Fetal and Neonatal Edition archives from September 2003

Probiotics for preterm infants?(Review)
September 1, 2003... Infants nursed in special care baby units develop an abnormal pattern of microbial colonisation, which may contribute to disease. Enteric feeding of live microbial supplements (probiotics) may provide benefit to such infants and help to prevent...

Neonatal thrombocytopenia: causes and management.(Review)
September 1, 2003... Neonatal thrombocytopenia is a common clinical problem. Thrombocytopenia presenting in the first 72 hours of life is usually secondary to placental insufficiency and caused by reduced platelet production; fortunately most episodes are mild or...

Use of low molecular mass heparin (enoxaparin) in newborn infants: a prospective cohort study of 62 patients.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Objective: To detail low molecular mass heparin (enoxaparin) use in the first few months of life. Design: Prospective, consecutive cohort of unselected newborn infants. Methods: Newborn infants were divided into groups by gestational...

Urine polymerase chain reaction as a screening tool for the detection of congenital cytomegalovirus infection.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Objectives: To define the incidence of congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in a defined population in Israel as diagnosed by urine polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and to assess the utility of this method for screening for congenital CMV...

Changes in resuscitation practice at birth.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Aim: To investigate secular changes in neonatal resuscitation at birth. Methods: Single centre observational study of 17 890 infants born between May 1993 and April 1997. T-piece ventilation was introduced in April 1995. Observations:...

Effect of caesarean section on breast milk transfer to the normal term newborn over the first week of life.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Objective: To determine the effect of caesarean section on breast milk transfer (BMT) to the normal term infant over the first week of life. Method: A sample of 88 healthy nursing mothers who had a normal vaginal delivery, and 97 mothers...

Maternal docosahexaenoic acid supplementation during pregnancy and visual evoked potential development in term infants: a double blind, prospective, randomised trial.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Aim: To test the hypothesis that maternal docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation during pregnancy enhances maturation of the visual evoked potential (VEP) in healthy term infants. Methods: One hundred women were supplemented with either...

Prenatal drug exposure and maternal and infant feeding behaviour.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Objective: To evaluate feeding difficulties and maternal behaviour during a feeding session with 1 month old infants prenatally exposed to cocaine and/or opiates. Methods: The study is part of the maternal lifestyle study, which recruited...

Parental post-traumatic reactions after premature birth: implications for sleeping and eating problems in the infant.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Background: Progress in perinatal medicine has made it possible to increase the survival of very or extremely low birthweight infants. Developmental outcomes of surviving preterm infants have been analysed at the paediatric, neurological,...

Infection control for SARS in a tertiary neonatal centre.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a newly discovered infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, which can readily spread in the healthcare setting. A recent community outbreak in Hong Kong infected a significant number of...

Use of a butterfly as an intraosseous needle in an oedematous preterm infant.(Images In Neonatal Medicine)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The technique of intraosseous line insertion can be useful in the neonate when venous access has proved difficult. In this infant, born at 25 weeks gestation, a prolonged illness required the insertion of a number of lines including...

Neonatal lenticulostriate vasculopathy: further characterisation.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Background: Lenticulostriate vasculopathy (LSV) is sometimes detected on routine brain ultrasonography in neonates, and is often associated with various perinatal and neonatal abnormalities. However, most reports on LSV are retrospective with...

Use of healthcare resources, family function, and socioeconomic support during the first four years after preterm birth.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Objectives: To assess the use of healthcare resources for preterm infants and to evaluate family function and socioeconomic support in a defined population from birth to 4 years of age. Methods: In a prospective case-control study, 39...

Social trends in singleton births and birth weight in Wirral residents, 1990-2001.
September 1, 2003... Objective: To examine social trends in the number of singleton births and birth weight in an English health district between 1990 and 2001, using an area based deprivation index. Design: Analysis of routinely collected hospital data. ...

Developing a neonatal workforce: role evolution and retention of advanced neonatal nurse practitioners.
September 1, 2003... Background: Over the past decade more than 120 advanced neonatal nurse practitioners (ANNPs) have graduated from the Southampton based ANNP programme. Objectives: To determine the scope of practice and evolving role of ANNPs and to...

Phototherapy with turquoise versus blue light.(Original Article)
September 1, 2003... Preterm jaundiced infants were treated by phototheraphy with a new turquoise fluorescent lamp. This was more effective in reducing plasma total bilirubin in relation to light irradiance than the ubiquitously used blue fluorescent lamp. ...

Neonatologists are using much less dexamethasone.(Short Report)
September 1, 2003... Two historical cohorts (1993-1994 and 2001) of preterm infants ventilated for respiratory distress syndrome were compared. Dexamethasone administration fell from 22% to 6%. Chronic lung disease in survivors rose slightly from 13% to 17%, and...

Contamination of a milk bank pasteuriser causing a Pseudomonas aeruginosa outbreak in a neonatal intensive care unit.(Short Report)
September 1, 2003... An environmental investigation and a cohort study were carried out to analyse an outbreak of infection caused by a serotype 010 Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a neonatal intensive care unit. Thirty one cases of infection were recorded, including...

Congenital leukaemia after heavy abuse of permethrin during pregnancy.(Case Report)
September 1, 2003... A single case is described of congenital leukaemia with 11q23/MLL rearrangement in a preterm female newborn. Because of arachnophobia, the mother had heavily abused aerosolised permethrin, a widely used household insecticide. Permethrin is...

Dehydrated hereditary stomatocytosis with transient perinatal ascites.(Case Report)
September 1, 2003... The case is reported of a mother and baby with dehydrated hereditary stomatocytosis and perinatal ascites, an autosomal dominant condition not previously reported in Britain. Recognition is important for the management of pregnancy and for...

Unusual complication of a central venous line in a neonate.(Case Report)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The placement of a central venous line in a low birthweight neonate led to a complication that highlights the need for continued vigilance after the position of the line is checked and thought satisfactory. ********** A770 g, 26 week...

Galen (AD 129-200) of Pergamun: anatomist and experimental physiologist.(Perinatal Lessons From The Past)
September 1, 2003... Galen was a brilliant anatomist and pioneer of experimental physiology. His many important discoveries exerted a profound influence on medicine during the next 1400 years. However, his wish to solve all the problems of health and disease led...

Late anaemia in Rh haemolytic disease.(Letters)
September 1, 2003... As it is clearly stated in the review by Gottstein and Cooke, (1) we consider it unethical to withhold or delay high dose intravenous immunglobulin (WIG) treatment in infants with haemolytic disease of the newborn. Since the study we did in...

Systematic review of intravenous immunoglobulin in haemolytic disease of the newborn.(Letters)
September 1, 2003... We read with interest the recent review of Gottstein and Cooke. (1) Their systematic review of trials reporting treatment of infants with proven Rh and/or ABO haemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN) treated with high dose intravenous...

High dose intravenous immunoglobulin in haemolytic disease of neonates.(Letters)
September 1, 2003... It was encouraging to read article of Gottstein et al, (1) on the use of high dose intravenous immunoglobulin (HDIVIG) in cases of haemolytic disease of newborns (HDN) with their conclusion showing the effectiveness of HDIVIG. I have the...

Discharging twins separately from neonatal units.(Letters)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... We recently had a debate in our unit about whether or not it was better for a well twin to remain with its sibling in hospital until the latter was fit to be discharged. Our current practice is to keep the well twin in the special care baby...

Role of serum peak levels of vancomycin in neonatal intensive care units.(Letters)
September 1, 2003... We would like to comment on the article by Tan et al. (1) The purpose of measuring serum levels of a drug is either to monitor the toxicity of the drug or the therapeutic concentration for a particular condition. Emergence of infections with...

Methaemoglobinaemia with concurrent blood isolation of Saccharomyces and Candida.(Letters)
September 1, 2003... Saccharomyces boulardii is closely related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and is used as biotherapeutic agent, (1) although some reports suggest pathogenicity. (2) We present a case of neonatal fungaemia with concurrent methaemoglobinaemia,...

Wafting does work.(Letters)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... We were interested to see the article "Oxygen administration in infants", (1) and eLetter responses. The original article and eLetters were unsure of the efficacy of "non-contact" oxygen delivery or "wafting" as it is more commonly known. Our...

Correction.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... We wish to apologise for an error that occurred in a letter by Daniels et al (Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2003;88:F257). The first line of the third paragraph should have read: The salient results were that two thirds of granulomas...