A signal for help from babies

Pregnancy is almost always a joy. And happy parents begin to calculate the timing of childbirth in order to have time to prepare. But unfortunately, every 15th family in Ukraine, contrary to expectations, is faced with the fact that their baby is born earlier than planned. These babies who are born before 37 weeks are called premature babies. Each premature baby is purely individual, it differs from a full-term baby not only in appearance, its internal organs and systems are imperfect and not ready for extrauterine life. Without qualified medical help from doctors, without modern equipment, these kids simply cannot survive. And due to the underfunding of hospitals, we have to ask you for help in purchasing the most necessary devices.

The shorter the period of bearing a child, the less his body is prepared for life in the outside world. Such a child needs special care to cope with the following problems: keeping warm, feeding, breathing, infections, brain and others. The most important thing to control in the first minutes of life is the level of oxygen saturation in the baby's blood. The device that allows you to do this is a neonatal pulse oximeter, which every little patient should have.

The pulse oximeter has a special sensor that attaches to the baby and monitors the percentage of oxygen in the blood. The doctor or nurse, with this information, can adjust the percentage of oxygen supplied to the child depending on the individual needs of each child. It is also very important that premature babies often have breath holding (apnea). They can be physiological due to immaturity and pathological. This condition can be fatal, and with the pulse oximeter signal, breath holding can be recognized immediately and the necessary measures can be taken to get the baby to breathe again. In addition, the pulse oximeter shows the heart rate of the baby, which is extremely important in nursing premature babies. Indeed, in immature children arrhythmias (interruptions in the work of the heart) often occur, which are very difficult to diagnose without monitoring. That is, it is impossible to nurture a premature baby without monitoring extremely important indicators, such as blood oxygen saturation and heart rate.

Now these functions are performed by nurses who are on duty at the children around the clock, but there are several heavy children per nurse in the ward that need supervision. We are confident in nurses, but by paying attention to one child, the second babies may experience changes that will simply be physically invisible. And thanks to the pulse oximeter, we will hear a signal for help already in the first seconds. Is it worth reminding about timely assistance?

With devices such as pulse oximeters, doctors at the Khmelnytskyi Regional Hospital will be able to effectively care for premature babies. Their disability will significantly decrease and the quality of life will improve.

We look forward to your support! There is nothing better in the world than a happy child!