Foothills Hospital now has a portable transportation cooling device to put oxygen-deprived babies into therapeutic hypothermia and help prevent further brain damage.

It is an improvement over the cooling blankets or gel packs doctors have been using since 2008 to cool babies down from 37 degrees to 33.5 degrees celsius for 72 hours.

“With those methods, it can be difficult to maintain a stable temperature,” said Dr. Khorshid Mohammad, neonatologist. “The period immediately following birth is critical. We have about a six-hour window to lower these babies’ temperatures to prevent neurological damage. The sooner we can do so, and the more consistent we can make the temperature, the more protective it is and the better their chances of surviving without injury.”

The device made a huge difference for Tegan de Vries the day she was born.

“Her heart rate dropped and they did an emergency C-section,” said Katie Kaminski, Tegan’s mother. “She had lost a lot of her blood, so she wasn’t breathing.”

Tegan was put in the cooling device and taken to Foothills Hospital, where she spent 12 days getting therapy. Her mother says the decision to use the cooling device likely saved Tegan’s life.

“She is a very happy, healthy one year old, and she might not be walking or anything like that if they hadn’t cooled her down. 

The new $35,000 unit will be installed on a portable cart that can be taken anywhere in southern Alberta by ground or air.

Of the approximately 50,000 babies born in Alberta each year, about 500 term and near-term babies are at risk of brain injury due to oxygen deprivation around the time of delivery. About 65% of babies are born outside facilities that have neonatal intensive care units, where care providers can use therapeutic hypothermia. In Calgary, about 40 newborns undergo therapeutic hypothermia every year.

The NICUs at Foothills Medical Centre and Alberta Children’s Hospital are also among the first centres in Canada to monitor cooled babies with continuous video EEG (electro- encephalogram), so doctors can respond to seizures that might not be outwardly visible.

The neonatal neuro-critical care team in Calgary is working on standardizing care guidelines for babies at risk to include practices such as therapeutic hypothermia.