My little battlers are coming home

Tiny twins Ben and Jordan Alexander came into the world more than 15 weeks early, weighing less than 1.5kgs between them.

Their early arrival was a real shock for first time mother-to-be Karen Banks, who was having a trouble-free pregnancy. The 39-year-old was 24 weeks weeks and five days into her gestation when her waters broke in the middle of the night while she was home along in Dingley Valley.

Her partner, Mark Alexander, was on his way to Queensland. Within an hour she was having an emergency caesarean at Monash Medical Centre. “I rang my sister, who rang an ambulance that took me straight to the hospital,” Mrs Banks said.

“When i got there i was fully dilated”.

“I don’t know what happened”.

“All of a sudden it felt like something wasn’t right”.

“It was very frightening. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with it”.

Maternity experts at Monash’s Newborn Services Unit stabilised the fragile babies.

“Mark was just near Parkes with his son, Jackson, and they turned around and drove straight to the hospital, “Karen said.

“He got there at 9.30 that night, but at least it was still the same day as the babies were born”.

Baby girl Jordan was strong of the two premature babies. She weighed 687g and was 31.5cm long when she came into the world on September 2005.

“Just a bit bigger than a tub of butter,” her mother said.

Meanwhile her twin brother Ben (700g and 32cm long) was facing an uphill battle.

“Like many very premature babies their lings were too immature for them to be able to breathe without help”, Monash Medical Centre Newborn Services director Dr Andrew Ramsden said.

“For a time, they were both needed full intensive care support with a mechanical ventilator,” he said.

“When Ben was about one month old he developed a condition called necrotising enterocolitis in which the bowel becomes inflammed and in severe cases can cause the bowel to perforate. “Ben needed emergency surgery, which was performed in the intensive care nursery, as he was too unwell to be moved to the operating theatre.

“The affected region of the bowel was re-moved and the ends were brought out on to the skin.

“On Valentine’s Day Ben had further surgery to reconnect his bowel and he and his sister are now well on their way to recovery and should be home before long with Mum, Dad and big brother, Jackson”.

Ms Banks was proud to reveal the twins were growing well.

“Ben is now 4078g and Jordan is 4510g”. she said.

“I can’t believe we will have them home in just a few weeks”.

Story by Suellen Hinde – Medical Reporter the Sun Herald.

Premature babies who receive morphine may grow up to be more sensitive to pain, a study on rats suggests.

US researchers found rodents given the drug just after birth later needed higher doses of morphine to kill pain than counterparts in a placebo group.

Morphine is a standard part of care for premature babies, who may need hundreds of painful treatments and tests.

The study reported in New Scientist, raises questions, if not answers, about the practice, experts say.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina treated newborn rats with morphine injections for the first nine days of life and tested their pain responses a few weeks later.

Rats are born so immature that their early development is comparable with that of a premature baby.

After nearly six weeks, broadly equivalent to a human becoming a teenager, the morphine rat appeared to be more sensitive to be pain than the rat given the placebo.

For instance it withdrew it paws more readily when these were heated with a lamp, and when pain was induced appeared to need more morphine to quell it.

‘Least harm’
About 3% of babies in the US and UK are born so prematurely they need treatments which in turn are believed to require pain relief.

The mortality rate is higher for unsedated babies, not to mention the fact that it would be totally unacceptable to wilfully expose newborn infants to severe pain.

Their pain is judged on their physical response, and the drug is administered accordingly. Premature babies may require many painful procedures. This research does raise questions about that practice, but other studies have produced contradictory findings about children and pain.

For instance, a Canadian study found that infants who were circumcised without anaesthetic appeared more sensitive to pain when given their immunisation injections later on that children who had not been circumcised.

“Of course if there are adverse affects of giving morphine to infants then we need to look into them, and this is a very interesting – and indeed plausible – study,” says Malcolm Levene, professor of paediatrics at Leeds School of Medicine.

“But ultimately we are interested in the option which causes the least amount of harm. The mortality rate is higher for unsedated babies, not to mention the fact that it would be totally unacceptable to wilfully expose newborn infants to severe pain.”

Article and photo from BBC News