Saturday 24, Oct 2009
Lungs of Preterm babies protected with multiple courses of steroids.
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Repeated courses of steroids administered to nursing women during preterm labor can prove effective when it comes to improving survival rate of babies. It was also suggested that steroids do not result in brain damage to baby in womb as was thought previously.
It was remarked by Sanjiv Amin, M.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical center and author of the study, that more babies need ventilation when steroid treatment is delayed or avoided by nursing mothers.
From Bio-Medicine.org:
“The consensus in recent years has been to no longer give women in preterm labor more than one course of steroids because of possible adverse effects, but it means more babies are born needing ventilation,” said Sanjiv Amin, M.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical center and author of the study. “These findings may give us back a tool to help give these fragile babies a better chance of survival.”
Before concerns arose in 2000 about safety of multiple courses of steroids, many mothers in on-and-off preterm labor received several rounds before delivering. Now, when mothers go into preterm labor, obstetricians will often administer only a single course of steroids to help strengthen the baby’s lungs upon birth. But if the birth is successfully held off for more than seven days, the mother does not receive another course of medication and the baby’s lungs may not be protected.
This is regrettable, because one of the biggest challenges for babies born preterm is breathing on their own. Many develop respiratory distress syndrome because their lungs have not developed a protective film over their air sacks, called surfactant, which aids in the transfer of oxygen and decreases the work of breathing. Because of that, they may receive medications and supplemental oxygen, which can cause problems of their own.
Amin also remarked that ABR (auditory brainstem evoked response) can be termed as a window into the entire brain and there were no suggesting results for proving that an infant’s brain receiving multiple courses of betamethasone steroids gets affected in any way.
Tags: ABR, auditory brainstem evoked response, betamethasone steroids, multiple courses of steroids, preterm labor, steroids, survival rate of babies
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A recently concluded study revealed that repeated courses of 