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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 26, 2017)
Page 6A TV TIME East Oregonian Wednesday, April 26, 2017 Hope for preemies as artifi cial womb helps tiny lambs grow WASHINGTON — Researchers are creating an artifi cial womb to improve care for extremely premature babies — and remarkable animal testing suggests the fi rst-of-its-kind watery incubation so closely mimics mom that it just might work. Today, premature infants weighing as little as a pound are hooked to ventilators and other machines inside incu- bators. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is aiming for a gentler solution, to give the tiniest preemies a few more weeks cocooned in a womb- like environment — treating them more like fetuses than newborns in hopes of giving them a better chance of healthy survival. The researchers created a fl uid-fi lled transparent container to simulate how fetuses fl oat in amniotic fl uid inside mom’s uterus, and attached it to a mechanical placenta that keeps blood oxygenated. In early-stage animal testing, extremely premature lambs grew, apparently normally, inside the system for three to four weeks, the team reported Tuesday. “We start with a tiny fetus that is pretty inert and spends most of its time sleeping. Over four weeks we see that fetus open its eyes, grow wool, breathe, swim,” said Dr. Emily Partridge, a CHOP research fellow and fi rst author of the study published in Nature Communications . “It’s hard to describe actually how uniquely awe-inspiring it is to see,” she added in an interview. Human testing still is three to fi ve years away, although the team already is in discussions with the Food and Drug Administration. “We’re trying to extend normal gestation,” said Dr. Alan Flake, a fetal surgeon at CHOP who is leading the AP Photo/Michael Conroy In this March 13 photo, students and teachers gather for an all-school meeting called “circle” at Hope Acad- emy in Indianapolis. Overcoming opioids: Special schools help teens stay clean INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — When Logan Snyder got hooked on pills after a prescription to treat pain from a kidney stone, she joined the millions already swept up in the nation’s grim wave of addiction to opioid painkillers. She was just 14. Youth is a drawback when it comes to kicking drugs. Only half of U.S. treatment centers accept teenagers and even fewer offer teen-fo- cused groups or programs. After treatment, adolescents fi nd little structured support. They’re outnumbered by adults at self-help meetings. Sober youth drop-in centers are rare. Returning to school means resisting offers to get high with old friends. But Snyder is lucky: Her slide ended when her father got her into a residential drug treatment program. Now 17 and clean, she credits her continued success to Hope Academy in Indianapolis, a tuition-free recovery school where she’s enrolled as a junior. “I am with people all day who are similar to me,” she says. “We’re here to hold each other accountable.” The opioid epidemic, which researchers say is the worst addiction crisis in U.S. history, has mostly ensnared adults, especially those in their 20s, 30s and 40s. But teens have not been spared: Each day, 1,100 start misusing pain pills. Opioids killed 521 teens in 2015, federal data show. Not enough is known about opioids and teen brains. But getting hooked early is trouble — the vast majority of adults in treatment report they started using as teen- agers. Researchers say young recovering addicts do better at places like Hope, special schools that use peer commu- nities to support sobriety. There are only about three dozen such schools in the U.S., but interest is growing among educators and health offi cials because of the opioid epidemic. “I get a phone call every day from somebody who wants to start a recovery high school,” says Rachelle Gardner, an addiction coun- selor who helped found Hope in 2006 as a charter school through the mayor’s offi ce. “It’s horrible to watch young people die. And who wants that to be our legacy?” Hope’s 41 teenagers have abused marijuana, alcohol, painkillers and heroin. Most, like Snyder, have been through residential treatment, some more than once. Others, like 17-year-old Aiden Thompson, arrive with no treatment after a crisis. “I was really pissed off because I didn’t want to be here,” says Thompson, who came to Hope last year after his mom discovered his vodka and pill stash. “Everything they said, I was like: ‘That can’t be true. No. No way.’” A week later, though, he found himself talking in group meetings. Now, he said, “I don’t even want to think about where I would be” without the school. Teens like Snyder and Thompson can change in these settings, even after years of drug abuse, in part because social acceptance is a fundamental need for people their age. The sway of positive peer pressure — what students at Hope call “the community” — is quiet, almost intangible. It’s as simple as two teens passing in the hall: “You all right?” says one boy. The other nods, “Yeah, I’m all right.” A student council plans events like coffee-and- music mornings. To join the council, a student must have 30 days of sobriety. Random drug tests keep it real. Failing a urine test prompts a meeting with recovery coach Brad Trolson, who employs a technique called motivational inter- viewing, using open-ended questions and refl ective listening to encourage students to think for them- selves. “They’re not used to anyone saying, ‘What do you think you should do next?’” Trolson says. It’s a daily fi ght, he says. Many have addicted parents or histories of abuse or neglect, key risk factors for addiction. “Their wounds will start to heal and they’ll come open again,” he says. “You end up addressing those wounds over and over again.” Thompson, who relapsed over winter break, says he’s learning to focus on one day of recovery at a time. “I’m clean for today and that’s all that matters,” he says. “I don’t want to put all this weight on my shoulders to feel like I have to stay clean forever. I can just take it a day at a time and not be freaked out by it.” Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia via AP In this drawing provided by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, an illustration of a fl uid-fi lled incubation system that mimics a mother’s womb, in hopes of one day improving survival of extremely premature babies. project and considers it a temporary bridge between the mother’s womb and the outside world. Increasingly hospitals attempt to save the most critically premature infants, those born before 26 weeks gestation and even those right at the limits of viability — 22 to 23 weeks. Extreme prematurity is a leading cause of infant mortality, and those who do survive frequently have serious disabilities such as cerebral palsy. The idea of treating pree- mies in fl uid-fi lled incubators may sound strange, but phys- iologically it makes sense, said Dr. Catherine Spong, a fetal medicine specialist at the National Institutes of Health. One of the biggest risks for very young preemies is that their lungs aren’t ready to breathe air, she explained. Before birth, amniotic fl uid fl ows into their lungs, bringing growth factors crucial for proper lung development. When they’re born too soon, doctors hook preemies to ventilators to keep them alive but risk lifelong lung damage. Flake’s goal is for the womb-like system to support the very youngest preemies just for a few weeks, until their organs are mature enough to better handle regular hospital care like older preemies who have less risk of death or disability. The device is simpler than previous attempts at creating an artifi cial womb, which haven’t yet panned out. How the “Biobag” system works: —The premature lambs were delivered by C-section and immediately placed into a temperature-controlled bag fi lled with a substitute for amniotic fl uid that they swallow and take into their lungs. “We make gallons of this stuff a day,” said fetal physiologist Marcus Davey. It’s currently an electrolyte solution; he’s working to add other factors to make it more like real amniotic fl uid. —Then the researchers attached the umbilical cord to a machine that exchanges carbon dioxide in blood with oxygen, like a placenta normally does. —The lamb’s heart circu- lates the blood, without the need for any other pump. The researchers tested fi ve lambs whose biological age was equivalent to 23-week human preemies, and three more a bit older. All appeared to grow normally, with blood pressure and other key health measures stable.