Until now, babies with kidney failure were treated with machines built for adults, with smaller filters and other imprecise adaptations that tend to withdraw too much or too little of the waste fluid building up in the body.

“Incredible but true,” said Claudio Ronco from the San Bortolo Hospital’s renal research institute in Vicenza. “It’s like using a tool for a car to fix a watch.”

Yet companies have been loath to invest in baby-targeted machines as they are not profitable enough, he added.

“The number of neonates (infants) around the world that suffer from this disorder is very small and therefore there is no point for a company to invest in technology.”

So Ronco and colleagues launched a fundraising programme, hosting sports games and concerts and collecting some 300,000 euros ($410,000) to build a prototype.

This attracted help from two Italian manufacturers, and so the child-friendly machine dubbed CARPEDIEM (Cardio-Renal Paediatric Dialysis Emergency Machine) was born.

The first beneficiary, a girl with multiple organ failure weighing just 2.9 kilogrammes (6.4 pounds), was treated in August last year.

“The baby was almost dead,” Ronco told AFP. “This baby could not be treated with any other treatment. When the baby was discharged from hospital we really had the impression that we had done something very good.”

The girl underwent 25 days of dialysis and was sent home after 50 days with her organ function restored.

Nine other babies have since been treated in Europe, of whom seven survived, said Ronco. This was an “incredible” percentage given the historical mortality rate of up to 90 percent, he explained.

“This technology has the potential to revolutionise the treatment of infants with acute kidney injury,” said a press statement from The Lancet medical journal, which published the study.

It can be used on newborns and children up to 10 kilogrammes, can handle smaller volumes of fluid much more accurately, and allows the use of a much smaller catheter.

About 18 percent of infants with low birthweight and about 20 percent of children admitted to intensive care are estimated to suffer from acute kidney injury, according to the statement.

In a comment on the study, Benjamin Laskin of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Bethany Foster from Montreal’s Children’s Hospital said the girl’s survival was “an outcome that would have been less likely just several years ago”.

“The smile of the baby when she came to visit me three days ago — that smile was worth 40 years of medicine,” added Ronco.

(AFP Relaxnews)

The post World’s first kidney dialysis machine for infants now exists! appeared first on All4Baby.

Language development and the ability to learn

An undetected hearing loss in a child will hamper their speech and language development as well as their ability to learn, which often leads to communication difficulties and social isolation that has the potential to leave a child bewildered and alone in a world of silence.

According to Hema Thakor, a Client Relations Executive at Oticon South Africa, a leading hearing aid manufacturer, the gap between the vocabulary of children with normal hearing and those with hearing loss widens with age. “Without intervention, children with hearing loss may struggle to catch up and therefore it is important to act early if you suspect your child has a hearing loss. The earlier the problem is identified and intervention begun, the less profound the ultimate impact will be,” says Hema.

Hema Thankor, Client Relations Executive of Oticon SouthAfrica

From the womb

Infants are able to recognise familiar voices even before they are born, which is why babies get excited in the womb. “As a parent, you will expect your child to respond to your voice when you speak to them, or for them to move their head or eyes to follow the sounds they are hearing or to startle at loud sounds such as a door banging. If there is however no reaction then it would be prudent to investigate your child’s hearing,” says Hema.

Difficult to pick up

A mild hearing loss is often not picked up as it is easy to miss that a child cannot hear soft sounds. It normally only comes to light once the child starts talking between the ages of one and one-and-a-half years of age. A delay in their language development is an indicator or once they start school and struggle to hear well in the classroom.

If a parent suspects that a child has a hearing loss, they often do not know how to go about confirming it. “It can be quite a traumatic discovery and many parents spend quite some time in a state of denial, because they find it too painful to accept what is happening. It is a perfectly normal reaction, but for the sake of your child it is important to contact an Audiologist and to have your child’s hearing tested as soon as possible,” urges Hema.

 Hearing loss can occur if an infant:

• Is born prematurely
• Has stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit
• Is given medications that can lead to hearing loss – ototoxic drugs such ARVs
• Has a family history of childhood hearing loss
• Has had complications at birth
• Has had infections such as Meningitis or Cytomegalovirus
• Is exposed to very loud sounds or noises even for a brief duration

When and how can a child’s hearing be tested?

A child’s hearing can be tested as early as the day they are born. In fact, the majority of medical facilities in the private sector offer newborn hearing screening programs that will test the child’s hearing before they are discharged.

In an infant the aim would be to test whether the ear is functioning correctly by objectively assessing the outer ear, middle ear and inner ear (cochlear), which means that the infant does not have to respond to the test but that the equipment utilised will determine the results.

Recommended screening technologies include oto-acoustic emissions (OAE), which assess cochlear functioning, and auditory brainstem responses (ABR), which record neural activity in response to sounds.

The tests are accurate and take one to three minutes to perform; and have the same sensation as simply putting a finger in the infant’s ear.

“A hearing loss or the degree thereof is often not diagnosedduring one assessment in infants.An Audiologist willoften at the very least repeat the same test twice or perform multiple tests to confirm results in order to ensure the reliability of the results,” says Hema.

Treatment options

There are various treatment options available, following an accurate diagnosis. “Speak to your doctor or Audiologist about optimising the hearing that your child has, to develop his or her speech and language.This could result in your child being fitted with a hearing aid or cochlear implant.

However, your Audiologist will be best equipped to advise which is better suited to your child. Remember that the road to hearing is often thwarted with emotional distress, so don’t embark upon the process alone, even parents need support,” concludes Hema.

For more information, please visit www.oticon.co.za

The post What if my baby has hearing loss? appeared first on All4Baby.

It’s hard. I can go all day feeling drier than the Sahara and then I feel the longing and the emptiness in our home or I look at one of his photos, remember the time I took it and the flood of tears comes.

The only thing that doesn’t go away, even momentarily, is the pain. It’s physical and real and on-going. Unending.

I won’t write much more today. It feels disloyal to his memory still. Everything feels disloyal to his memory. Eating without interruption. Watching a TV show in its entirety. Taking a walk outside without his baby monitor. The guilt is all consuming.

We’re alive and he’s not.

However, I did promise a few mothers that I’d share my eulogy with them and it was the only thing I wanted to get right on the day we bid him a public farewell, so here it is…

“I sat alone this morning, the day before we sent your body away, and listened for you. I tried as hard as I could to see you. And in the quiet noise that is nature, I felt my own heart skip a beat as it has done several times a week since you were born…

I drew in a sharp breath and remembered… That this is where you live now.

I’ve woken up before the sun every day since Friday. My intentions always become very clear to anyone paying attention. I would hate the sun. I would hate it with every ounce of my being because it refuses to mourn. Because every time the sun comes up it means another day I have to live without my son.

Every day I’ve begged whoever is in charge to take me back, just to last week Wednesday or Thursday so I could stop it. But, most hatefully, it will not be.

Every day, I’ve asked that I be taken instead and every day ends and I’m still here.

Every day, I’ve blamed myself for letting my beautiful son die.

Every day I get up from the couch where I sleep, I go into the room where he woke us at 01h30 on Friday morning to make sure we were there for him when his little heart gave up and I weep as I realise anew that nothing we did changed anything.

Every day I rise and I am as cold to my bones as his soft skin was the last time I kissed his face and all I want to be is as cold as the Winter that has truly arrived since the day he died.

But, no matter how hard I try to hate everything in this world, it doesn’t last.

I realise the sun is actually Hudson. I realise that he will not allow me to hate for much longer. I know that he will turn my anger into calm. My grief into smiles as I remember him. I know this is a long journey and I won’t be the person he needs me to be today but I also know as the sun hits my shoulders that he will be there to comfort me  until I can be the person he knows me to be.

He mourned with me on Saturday and Sunday and the sun was hidden behind a blanket of miserable grey clouds and rain (as my friend Axel posted in a private message to me: “The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”) but now Hudson warms me. He reminds me that he’s here still.

That everything he went through in his life was mapped out long before he entered my body and became a part of me that would never leave. That he chose his path. He chose Nick and I. He chose his faulty heart. He chose the difficult and trying life that he lived and he chose his death.

Before Hudson, I realise now, I was a shell of a person. I would say I was selfish and wanted what I wanted in life and had no room for the bigness of children. But it was a lie. I was just empty and didn’t know any better.

I was walking along looking for somebody and then suddenly I wasn’t anymore. He forced his way into my life and, in doing so, saved me from myself. I fell truly in love for the first time in my life. Hudson turned me into something. He turned me into love. He filled me. He completed me. He made me count.

You are all here because you knew Hudson in one way or another. So I’m not going to go into the surgery and hospital stays and rubbish doctors or even tell you the funny stories of the nurses who poked fun at his fake crying. You’ve all followed his journey through pictures and updates, you’ve all fallen in love with him vicariously because, even from a distance, it was simply impossible not to adore this kid.

What you might not know though is that no matter how hard things got. No matter how many times I thought I couldn’t put my son through another day in the hospital. No matter how the guilt swelled up inside me as I watched them poking his skin in search of veins. There was never a day in his life that my son didn’t smile broadly and “gummily” at his dad and me. That he didn’t stare deeply into my eyes with eyes as big as his face – eyes that enveloped me entirely with one glance and showed, with such beautiful honesty, his instant and surging love for his mom. Eyes that told me exactly what he needed at any given point of the day.

He was happy and giddy and shy and full to the brim with love. He was a personality and proud of it. He had a sense of humour and a physical wit that would put me to shame. He held his head up high almost from birth. He spoke his first word. He laughed as his father and I touched his little tummy.

Even his last day with us was one filled with gums and fistfuls of grabbed hair as he hugged me tightly and snuggled his little face tiredly into my neck.

But one of the most important things I’ll remember about my son was his impact. When he was born, I said he was going to be famous. When we found out he’d have to undergo surgery, I said he was going to be big and important. I told him he had no choice but to make it through and that I was expecting nothing but success. And he was and still is all of these things.

Because of Hudson, people are hugging their children a little tighter at night.

Because of Hudson, one mother might ask her doctor to perform the check on her unborn son for CHDs and, in doing so, save her child.

Because of Hudson, Nick is a father, the proudest, most attentive, doting father I have ever known or could ever have hoped for.

And, because of Hudson, and only because of Hudson, I am now a person of substance. I am Hudson’s mother, and this is always going to be bigger than anything I ever wanted to be.”

The post A mom’s heartfelt eulogy to her four month old son appeared first on All4Baby.

Many of these products could contain toxic chemicals known as phthalates which can cause hormonal abnormalities, birth defects and even reproductive problems.

A recent investigation of 14 common air fresheners by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found hormone-disrupting chemicals known as phthalates in 12 products, including some fresheners marketed as “all-natural” and “unscented.”

None of the air fresheners listed phthalates on their labels. The air fresheners NRDC tested included aerosol sprays, liquids that emit a continuous scent, and a solid.

NRDC’s testing was limited, but the results do suggest that more comprehensive, in-depth testing of air fresheners is warranted.

Air fresheners are used indoors, heightening the threat of exposure to families.

A study (by the University of Bristol called “Children of the ’90s”, which has followed the health and development of 14,000 children since before birth) didn’t analyse the ingredients in air fresheners, just the effects:

• 32% more babies suffered diarrhea in homes where air fresheners were used every day
• These babies had significantly more earaches in these homes as well.
• Air fresheners also affected mothers—those who used them daily suffered nearly 10% more headaches.
• Perhaps most surprising is the finding that women who lived in homes with daily air freshener use had a 26% increased risk of depression.

Researchers have suggested that strong regulations need to be set in motion to protect consumers, such as having all manufacturers test and submit data on the levels of toxicity and health effects of inhaling the chemicals.

All is not lost if you wish to keep your home smelling fresh. Simple ways to freshen your surroundings naturally include:

• Opening the shades and windows to bring in air and sunlight
• Burn pure beeswax candles that purify and clean the air
• Leave an open box of baking soda open
• Use indoor plants
• Simmer cinnamon and cloves, fresh ginger or herbs in water on the stove top
• Use potpourris

Learn more about effectively removing  odour & bacteria at www.hygizone.com.

The post Air fresheners may lead to hormonal imbalances, birth defects and reproductive problems appeared first on All4Baby.

If you were to ask expectant mothers what a CHD is, not many would know the answer and this is because you only really become affected by these defects if you are lucky enough to have them identified early on.

CHD Facts

CHD deaths can be avoided through education and knowledge. If moms are armed with the information they need to protect their babies from CHD related issues, death could potentially be avoided. All moms need to do is ask.

• Congenital Heart Defects are the number one birth defect worldwide.
• Congenital Heart Defects are also the number one cause of birth defect related deaths worldwide.
• Approximately one out of every 100 babies are born each year with some type of Congenital Heart Defect.
• Each year 100,000 babies (under one year old) worldwide will not live to celebrate their first birthday.
• The cost for inpatient surgery to repair Congenital Heart Defects exceeds $2.2 billion a year.
• Of every dollar the government spends on medical funding only a fraction of a penny is directed toward Congenital Heart Defect research.
• Although some babies will be diagnosed during gestation or at birth, sometimes the diagnosis is not made until days, weeks, months, or even years after. In some cases, CHD is not detected until adolescence or adulthood.
• It is a proven fact that the earlier CHD is detected and treated, it is more likely the affected child will survive and have less long term health complications.
• More than 50% of all children born with congenital heart defect will require at least one invasive surgery in their lifetime.
• There are more than 37 different types of congenital heart defects. Little is known about the cause of most of them. There is no known prevention or cure for any of them.
• Globally, twice as many children die from congenital heart defects each year than from all forms of childhood cancer combined, yet funding for pediatric cancer research is five times higher than funding for CHDs.

Meet Hudson

“Hudson was born on January 14^th, 2013. Two days later, the hospital appointed paediatrician identified what he thought to be a heart murmur and immediately called the resident cardiologist to check it out. It turned out, Hudson had a congenital heart defect (CHD) called Truncus Arteriosus.

He underwent surgery at six weeks of age and everything looked so positive that we’d all but stopped worrying about his heart; so it was completely unexpected when he passed away in the early hours of the morning of May 17^th.

In a sad way, we were lucky. Hudson’s CHD was identified early on and we could do everything possible to try and save him. While we weren’t successful and are struggling through the grief of losing our child, we believe that Hudson’s story can help to make a difference in saving the lives of future CHD kids”, says Hudson’s mom, Andrea Slater.

Ask your OB Gyn for information on CHD

There aren’t many OB Gyns who routinely perform the necessary scans for CHDs during pregnancy. Most scan routinely for Down’s Syndrome and various other genetic disorders, but the dangers that face unborn children go further than just these.

If heart related disorders are identified, expectant mothers can, for instance, opt for caesarean sections rather than natural birth, thereby relieving the stress on the infant’s heart and body.

Ask for a Pulse Oximetry (Pulse Ox) screen once your child is born

Pulse Ox is a simple screening test that measures how much oxygen is in a baby’s blood. When performed after the baby is 24 hours old (or before discharge), the test can help identify babies who may have serious heart problems before they go home.

Speak to other humans who know

Join pages like The Hudson Initiative on Facebook, where we bring focus to CHDs, what’s being done about them in South Africa, what mothers can do to protect their kids going forward and raise funds to help raise awareness around CHDs. Talk to us, we can help you save a heart.

About the Author: Andrea Slater is mother to a CHD angel and all she wants is to help other tiny people get a fighting chance in this life. Readers are welcome to visit her blog for more on Hudson’s journey.

The post Congenital heart defects: What every mom and mom-to-be should know appeared first on All4Baby.

The project is funded by the Industry Association for Responsible Alcohol Use (ARA) and the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund.  The decision to run the project follows a FASD Prevalence Study that was conducted in the Witzenberg area (2010 – 2012), involving the towns and surrounding farming communities including Ceres, Bokkeveld, Op-die-Berg, Skurweberg, Wolseley, Tulbagh, Breede River Valley and Prince Alfred’s Hamlet.  The highest FASD prevalence rate was found in Prince Alfred’s Hamlet (180/1000 of the population).

FARR implemented its three-year FASD awareness and prevention project in Prince Alfred’s Hamlet and also trained medical professionals, social workers and educators before coming to a successful close on 31 March 2014.

Success factors from the programme included the creation of a social worker post at the Ceres District Hospital to support pregnant women and mothers; the level of FASD awareness in the community was raised considerably; and, to date, the FASD prevalence rate among new born babies reduced significantly.  In March 2015, FARR will assess the last babies born to the mothers who participated in its evidence based HMHB© Programme after which a final analysis of the data will be published.

In the same FASD Prevalence Study, it was discovered that the Wolseley and Breede River areas had the second highest FASD prevalence rate (120/1000 of the population).  FARR has therefore introduced the same project to Wolseley as Prince Alfred’s Hamlet which began on 1 April, 2014.

“We are looking forward to continuing our good work in the Witzenberg area and are grateful to both our funders, the ARA and the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund for their continued support.  From experience, we know that our programme models will need to be adapted according to the specific needs of the Wolseley and Breede River communities,” says FARR CEO Leana Olivier.

Critical success factors for this project include: raising awareness pertaining to FASD in the community; decreasing the FASD incidence by enrolling 100 pregnant women per annum in the HMHB© Programme; and developing the capacity in the Wolseley and Breede River areas by offering education and training programmes to community members, health professionals, social workers and educators.  This will enable them to address the FASD related problems in their areas and field of work.  By doing so, FARR is trying to facilitate the sustainability of the interventions to ensure the work will continue after this current project comes to an end on 31 March 2017.

“The work done by FARR illustrates how targeted interventions play an important role in reducing the misuse and abuse of alcohol, particularly in relation to FASD,” says ARA CEO Dr Osborn Mahanjana.  “The Department of Health is on board by appointing one of the FARR staff members from the Prince Alfred’s Hamlet project and community leaders continue the work FARR started by spreading the positive message of not drinking during pregnancy.  The ARA believes that engagement with all relevant stakeholders shows consistent results.”

For more information about the Foundation for Alcohol Related Research, please visit www.farrsa.org.za.

The post New project launched to prevent Fetal Alcohol Syndrome appeared first on All4Baby.