New medical technique ensures newborn's miraculous survival

Birmingham: A baby boy starved of oxygen during his birth has survived after medics cooled his brain for three days.

Jamie Merricks was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his throat.

This prevented him from breathing resulting in damage to his brain after it was starved of oxygen.

But doctors at a Birmingham Hospital utilised a radical new treatment where they cooled Jamie down to well below normal body temperature, between 33 and 34 degrees Centigrade.

The treatment involved a machine called a Tecotherm Neo, which uses cooling fluid, similar to that used in a car, in a mat onto which the baby is placed.

The baby's temperature is monitored via a probe, allowing the machine to make continual temperature adjustments.

Jamie's mother said he had been shivering after his birth with just a nappy on.

"They were desperately trying to cool his body temperature down because it couldn't quite reach the, below the 34 degrees that they needed," she said.

"So they got all the windows open and the poor little soul was shivering on the mat. But within a few hours he was down to the perfect temperature and he seemed really settled."

The treatment was inspired by the experiences of climbers who had been trapped, but had endured freezing conditions.

Jamie's doctor Vidya Garikapati said the idea was to "decrease the metabolism in the brain and thereby helping brain to recover and limit the damage which has already happened."

Garikapati believes the new treatment is the biggest breakthrough in the care of newborns in the last 20 years.