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Ed Yeates ReportingA research physician at McKay Dee Hospital has developed a synthetic form of amniotic fluid, which, when given to premature babies, appears to help them regain what they abruptly lose in the womb.
What a premature baby loses by leaving the womb too early is the ability to swallow large amounts of amniotic fluid. But what if the preemie could keep doing that - in a sense - after birth?
Swallowing amniotic fluid in the womb helps the unborn infant refine its digestive system. It's what the small bowel needs in order to develop normally. If you cut the fluid off too early, most infants develop all kinds of intestinal problems - like Levi Callahan who was born in eleven weeks early.
Vern Callahan, Levi's Father: “I was amazed he was going to make it, that he had a good chance. But it was very scary.”
But with FDA approval, Dr. Bob Christensen has been experimenting with something he discovered while working at the University of Florida. The clear looking fluid inside syringes is his Synthetic form of amniotic fluid. Christensen is now neonatal research director for IHC, continuing clinical trials at McKay Dee Hospital.
The synthetic fluid, which can be prepared right inside hospital pharmacies, has been tried on 80 babies so far, including Levi. So far, the results look promising.
The synthetic fluid duplicates only two major growth factors found in nature's own, but if stage two and stage three clinical trials do as well as these first experiments, it might be possible to expand the recipe even more.
