A simple change to infant care could help save lives, new Australian research suggests. Researchers at the University of Sydney have found that giving premature babies can improve the child's chances of survival. But they stress that further research is necessary, and it could take years until families see it in action.
Ashleigh and Lachlan Evans have experienced the challenges that can follow . Their baby, Charlie, was born weighing only 572 grams, with Ashleigh having to wait a week before touching him for the first time. Once she got that opportunity, everything changed.
"Up to that point, I hadn't felt like his mother," she said. "Maybe it hadn't sunk in or maybe it didn't feel real; so that was the most affirming point at the start." Source: SBS News / Cameron Carr Charlie was born at just 23 weeks and is now two years old.
He was so small his father's wedding ring would have fit easily around his arm. After five months of intensive care and multiple surgeries, Charlie was finally discharged from hospital. Lachlan said Charlie was lucky, with some other babies from the same ward facing "extensive problems".
"We were there for a long time and Charlie seemed to have got away better than the rest," Lachlan said. In Australia, about 8 per cent of babies are born prematurely, or under 37 weeks' gestation. With under-developed lungs, breathing is one of the biggest challenges they face.
Infants are currently given air that's about 21 per cent oxygen. But University of Sydney r.