Safer scans for babies
Special vacuum mattress is ‘moulded’ around the infant
A SPECIAL technique to take magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of babies has now become well-established at Elche general hospital, announced the regional government.
It uses a vacuum mattress to enable babies under three months of age and weighing over two kilos to be scanned without requiring sedation.
So far 20 babies have benefitted from this advance.
Neonatology nurse Aurelia Carbonell sad they learned about it on a training course about neural development at the 12 de Octubre hospital in Madrid.
“When we saw the good results from using this mattress, and the cost effectiveness, we spoke with the unit’s paediatricians and heads of paediatrics and neonatology, Drs José Pastor
and José Luis Quiles, and decided to get one of these mattresses for the hospital in Elche,” she explained.
According to specialists, when very small babies need a scan, they often move so tests like this have to be done under sedation, which entails certain risks. Even under mild sedation babies commonly move at some point during the test so it has to be stopped until the baby can be sedated again in order to continue.
This mattress is moulded around the baby then the air is removed with a vacuum pump to hold it in shape, providing a soft, yet rigid support that immobilises them.
At Elche general hospital, babies are scanned after they have their milk, as they usually sleep then.
Other advantages of ensuring the babies do not move include that the test can be carried out more quickly, there are no distortions to the image and it can be carried out continuously without having to check every little while to see if the baby has moved, all of which makes it much safer.
This also makes it quicker to diagnose any problem early or send the baby home if nothing is wrong.
MRIs are principally used on babies if there are suspicions of perinatal asphyxia, encephalopathy, hypoxia, ischaemia, intracranial haemorrhaging, dilation of cerebral ventricles, etc.