Brain chill 'saved baby from disability'
A mother today thanked doctors for saving her newborn daughter by “chilling” the baby’s brain for three days.
Olivia Templar underwent the procedure after she was starved of oxygen for 10 minutes during a traumatic birth at St Michael’s Hospital, in Bristol in England.
She was fitted with a head cap attached to a cooling machine to prevent her suffering brain damage or cerebral palsy.
Mother Nichola Templar, 31, from Bristol, has launched a campaign to raise money for the technology to be used nationwide.
She said: “We believe the cooling cap saved her from disability. I want every child to have this help. We want to do whatever we can for St Michael’s.”
Baby Olivia, who has now received the all-clear by doctors, suffered problems after a bump to the head during birth.
Mrs Templar, an admin worker, went on: “They managed to revive her but there were suggestions of brain damage. I remember the room being filled with doctors and nurses and doctors trying to get my baby out.
“I was in absolute agony, having only had gas and air the whole way through. When they eventually managed to get her out my husband, Daryl, looked at me and said I hope she is all right.
“We heard not a sound from our baby as she was taken to a group of doctors waiting to work on her. ”
A spokeswoman for United Bristol Healthcare Trust said the system has become standard practice since St Michael’s became the first hospital in the UK to use the technology in 1998.
Professor Marianne Thoresen, a paediatrician at St Michael’s, was behind one of the research programmes that led to the development of the cooling cap.
The device used on Olivia pumped coolant in to a plastic cap that subsequently keeps the baby’s head cool.
Prof Thoresen, who began working on the research in 1992, began piloting the methods on babies at St Michael’s in 1998.
