Cooling Blanket

Saving newborn lives---and qualities of lives!

Saint Elizabeth has introduced an exciting new breakthrough treatment device in our NICU that has been proven to save the lives of infants---and improve their quality of life as well.  We can now employ a unique whole body cooling blanket, proven to help infants born with oxygen loss to their brains, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, by cooling their entire body. Approximately 1 in 1,000 babies suffers from this oxygen loss.

Saint Elizabeth is the only medical center in the state using this innovative and Gold Standard specialized treatment for these infants. It is a phenomenal advancement in the care of these newborns—and among the first new treatments for them in decades. Previously our treatment was just supportive—essentially monitoring them and hoping for the best.

Reduces Neurological Damage
Science had demonstrated that the CSZ Blanketrol® II Hypo-Hyperthermia System provides therapeutic cooling that reduces neurological damage to newborns with oxygen deprivation if used within the first six hours. The infant is kept on the cooling system for 72 hours.
"This therapy has been studied extensively for several years, but recently the evidence for its effectiveness has become much stronger," Dr BJ Wilson, NICU medical director explains. "When it is used, the number of survivors of brain injury goes up and the number of survivors with disabilities goes down."

This breakthrough treatment is a whole body cooling blanket that consists of a multi-layered thermal blanket with embedded inflatable cells through which cool water is continually circulated. If this unique blanket is used within six hours of onset---brain injury can be reduced along with minimizing or avoiding consequences that can include death in newborns or result in what is later recognized as developmental delay, mental retardation, vision impairment, or cerebral palsy

Dr Wilson adds that infants eligible for the therapy must be born at term -36 weeks or later - and exhibit symptoms of distress, such as having an Apgar score below five, being in an altered state of consciousness, e.g., lethargic, and requiring mechanical ventilation.