St. Alexius Uses New Portable Infant ICU
by KXMB TV Megan Lowery
Posted on 1/26/2011
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For most new parents, the first few minutes of their infant’s life is exciting. But for others, it can be a very scary time. Megan Lowery explains how a new piece of medical equipment at St. Alexius Medical Center is helping to care for North Dakota’s most fragile newborns.
Every minute counts for newborn babies struggling to breath.
(Bonnie Cook, St. Alexius head neonatal transport nurse): “If we can intervene with equipment and with just some heat and IV fluids when they are born, they get better so much faster and go home healthy.”
Bonnie Cook works with premature babies and says she’s been seeing more who are underdeveloped and sick. Problems only a couple of the state’s hospitals are equipped to handle.
(Bonnie Cook, St. Alexius head neonatal transport nurse): “In small towns where they don’t have a lot of births, they don’t know what to do with a one pound baby or an eight pounder who is turning blue.”
That’s where St. Alexius’ new neonatal transport system comes in. The isolette acts as a traveling Neonatal Intensive Care Unit so that babies in rural hospitals can get the care they need more quickly.
(Bonnie Cook, St. Alexius head neonatal transport nurse): “It” piece of equipment we can’t do without.”
(Megan Lowry, Reporting): “The isolette controls the environment for the infant. giving specialist the time they need.”
(Bonnie Cook, St. Alexius head neonatal transport nurse): “If they get too cold or too hot, it affects many organs in their body, how they breathe, how their heart works. Babies get cold very fast, and this allows us to have an open environment and an environment that is very controlled by the medical staff.”
The isolette is transported by plane to rural hospitals, where St A’s staff can tend to babies before taking them back to a fully-equipped neonatal unit.
(Dan Schaefer, Metro Ambulance Director): “The time out of a hospital is critical. The isolette creates an environment an ambulance doesn’t have.” In the three months St Alexius has had the isolette, the neonatal staff has had to use it three times.