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Riley Sets the Standard for ECMO Treatment
It's news no parent wants to hear - their newborn baby is in distress and must be taken immediately to neonatal intensive care. After an emergency Cesarean section in 1996, that's what doctors told Rebecca Bibbs and her husband Kevin Spencer from Indianapolis about their son Roland Spencer-Bibbs. Roland was Rebecca's second child, and her pregnancy had been uneventful. But one week after her due date, an ultrasound showed the amniotic fluid surrounding the baby was drying out. The baby needed to be delivered immediately. As the C-section progressed, doctors noticed a substance called meconium in what was left of the amniotic fluid, meaning the baby had a bowel movement in utero. Before baby Roland was delivered, he tried to take a breath. This drew the substance into his lungs, a condition called meconium aspiration. Meconium is like tar in newborn lungs, putting Roland in grave danger. He was rushed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Riley Hospital for Children. There, neonatologists began a procedure called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or "ECMO." ECMO functions as a heart and lung bypass machine. "ECMO helps by providing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the blood when the baby's lungs or heart - or both - are not functioning properly," says Dr. William Engle, clinical director of the Riley NICU. "ECMO is important because it is a therapy that helps critically ill and unstable babies or children to recover, rather than die from their illness." "I felt nothing but confidence," Rebecca Bibbs remembers. Her mother worked at Indiana University Medical Center, so she had been around hospitals all her life. She was well aware of the level of care provided at Indiana's only comprehensive children's hospital. "If there was one place I wanted my child, it would be there at Riley." In 1996, ECMO was still a relatively new procedure. It was available in just a handful of hospitals in the country. Riley was the first and only hospital in Indiana that could offer Roland this lifesaving treatment. Offering ECMO requires a collaborative effort from many of the pediatric specialists at Riley, including neonatologists, pediatric surgeons and cardiovascular surgeons, pediatric perfusionists, pediatric radiologists, and specially trained ECMO technicians. Bibbs knows now how fortunate her family was. "I never fathomed what they did. Now I do." After five days on ECMO, Roland was strong enough to breathe on his own. He spent a total of three weeks in the Riley NICU. "Roland was a full-term baby. He weighed over 8 pounds, so he was by far the biggest, most alert baby there," says Bibbs. "The nurses loved it because he could respond to them. One of them made a little checkerboard with flowers and other shapes on it for him to look at." In 2004, Riley provided ECMO treatment to the 500th baby in need, making it one of the most experienced centers for this lifesaving treatment anywhere. The experience also gives Riley outstanding results, exceeding national survival rates as reported by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization. [Keywords: ECMO Treatment] |
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