New incubator for neonatal ICU will keep more babies on P.E.I.

A new special incubator for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital neonatal intensive-care unit will mean doctors can keep more sick and preterm babies on the Island.

"We're super, super, super excited and beyond grateful to have had the Wo He Lo group fundraise for the Giraffe OmniBed," said Dr. Beth Ellen Brown, neonatologist at the QEH in Charlottetown.

"This is a very unique and specialized piece of equipment that's going to enable us to further care for smaller, more preterm and sicker babies here in Charlottetown, that we would have previously had to send out to the IWK and ICU."

Brown said the incubator is designed to replicate the environment that the baby experiences inside the mother's belly.

"It allows us to provide warmth to babies. It allows us to provide humidity to babies to make sure that they stay warm enough and can use their energy to grow," Brown said.

"It allows us to be able to see the baby at all times, it's a clear incubator. It allows us to have access to the baby from all different directions immediately."

Reduces stress for babies

Brown said the OmniBed incubator also reduces the stress on babies in the neonatal intensive-care unit.

Brown described the environment inside the unit as like a tropical rain forest.

"Babies who are born early, their whole body is immature, so not just their lungs and their heart and their brain, but also their skin, which is the biggest organ in our body and skin is really important because that's what helps keep us hydrated," Brown said.

"So they lose a lot of heat, they lose a lot of water and that means that they they don't grow as well. They can get very dehydrated very quickly and they can get very cold."

Brown said the smallest babies are often weighed twice a day, every 12 hours, and the new incubator has a scale built into it.

"We don't have to move the baby other than lift them up two inches off the bed," Brown said.

"Right now, if a baby needs to be weighed, we actually have to physically take the baby out of the incubator, move them and all their wires to a scale, which can be a very stressful experience for babies."

Fundraising pivot

The Wo He Lo group had been fundraising for the new incubator, before the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to cancel both the spring and fall clothing fundraisers.

"We still wanted to honour our commitment for this wonderful machine, which cost $72,000," said Wo He Lo president Mary MacMillan.

"We had raised some money last fall through our last sale, but we still owed about $40,000 so we decided we looked at different options and we thought our best bet would be to have an online campaign."

That campaign has raised $30,000 so far, with just another $10,000 to go to meet its target. 

Top of wish list

Brown said getting another specialized bed is at the top of her wish list for the provincial neonatalogy service.

"We recognize we won't be able to care for every baby on P.E.I. and there are still babies that will have to go off Island," Brown said. 

"But our goal is even for those babies who have to go, that we're able to bring them back sooner.

"Babies who used to have to stay for two or three months at the IWK," Brown said, "they may be able to come back after four to six weeks, to really cut down on that time away from home."

Brown said the goal is to have the OmniBed incubator fully operational in October.

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