I discovered a few years ago that thanks to this kind of "experience", forced hypothermia is now used to prevent brain damage to new borns who suffered from loss of oxygen during delivery.
Our second son was (initially, thankfully) stillborn after a complicated delivery, yet the medical team managed to revive him and immediately put him in hypothermia (to 34° C), surrounding his head with some apparel containing essentially ice. Fast forward the 5 most painful days of my life, doctors warmed him back very slowly. He is now 4, and showing completely "normal" (in the statistical sense of the term) development.
Indeed, brain damage is not immediate in case of oxygen loss. It happens in phases. I am no expert, but I understood that most damage happen not immediately, and happen even if oxygen has been restored. Slowing down the body through hypothermia, seems to avoid the brain to "collapse".
Discussing with the head of the department (for a mandatory "retrospective"), he explained me that this technique had been devised after seeing that people who drowned in very cold water could be revived with less "impact" on their capacities than others. He also explained me that the technique was not always successful, but was the only "treatment" that had shown actual improvement of recovery chances in this kind of cases.
Wow. Congratulations on getting through that, all of you. That must have been harrowing. One of my children was born with a slight problem: he stopped breathing every couple of minutes and then turned blue and was quite far on the way out before we caught it the first time. Apparently there is some kind of O2 sensing mechanism that is supposed to be activated during delivery or immediately after causing the breathing reflex and it wasn't. It took 12 days to normalize, with lots of excursions, oxygen alarms and one very close call. All that time he spent in a neonatal ICU unit and I'm not exaggerating that it was the longest two weeks of my life. He's 12 now and like yours you'd never know.
What you and yours have gone through makes all that pale in comparison, I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like. And then to see him now as a four year old perfectly normal kid, that must be really special.
Our daughter was born a month premature, but was absolutely normal. Yet the hospital insisted on nicu for the first night. That was already too harrowing for us first time parents. Can't imagine what you guys went through (Jacques, Noe) and very glad in the end everything worked out. Being used to posts/replies from Jacques (and others) on tech subjects I forget that everyone here is still human with human problems. Thank you for sharing and injecting a dose of humanity and empathy in me.
The things I have seen in that nicu will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I'm not talking about what happened to us and our son but to the other people there. It didn't take all that long to figure out that we were the lucky ones.
What a traumatic experience. I cannot even imagine. Gives me chills
Our third had a pretty solid cord wrap going around her neck and being the third I knew it was not normal. Thankfully the nurse was skilled and it had not been depriving her of too much for very long. That was scary enough.
I am so happy for you that your son survived being born still. Wow.
It’s standard treatment now for all comatose patients rescuscitated after cardiac arrest
Though in recent years it has evolved to more an avoidance of fever than true hypothermia (“targeted temperature management”)
There’s lots of science in this area, and not just anecdote. The knowledge of this (which is not at all esoteric) is why the team in Norway thought there was a chance at reviving her
Our second son was (initially, thankfully) stillborn after a complicated delivery, yet the medical team managed to revive him and immediately put him in hypothermia (to 34° C), surrounding his head with some apparel containing essentially ice. Fast forward the 5 most painful days of my life, doctors warmed him back very slowly. He is now 4, and showing completely "normal" (in the statistical sense of the term) development.
Indeed, brain damage is not immediate in case of oxygen loss. It happens in phases. I am no expert, but I understood that most damage happen not immediately, and happen even if oxygen has been restored. Slowing down the body through hypothermia, seems to avoid the brain to "collapse".
Discussing with the head of the department (for a mandatory "retrospective"), he explained me that this technique had been devised after seeing that people who drowned in very cold water could be revived with less "impact" on their capacities than others. He also explained me that the technique was not always successful, but was the only "treatment" that had shown actual improvement of recovery chances in this kind of cases.