Tag Archive for: neonatal intensive care unit

baby in the NICU

Painful NICU procedures change neurological development in preterm babies

baby in the NICU

Premature infants exposed to pain while in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are at greater risk for motor delays, language deficits and autism, even in the absence of structural brain injuries, according to findings from the new Center for Prenatal, Neonatal & Maternal Health Research at Children’s National Hospital.

Premature infants exposed to pain while in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are at greater risk for motor delays, language deficits and autism, even in the absence of structural brain injuries, according to findings from the new Center for Prenatal, Neonatal & Maternal Health Research at Children’s National Hospital.

The research sheds light on the potential outcomes of routine medical interventions – such as heel pricks, venipunctures and IV placements – and correlates these skin breaks to changes in neurological connectivity in the preterm infants’ brains. Published in BMC Medicine, the work provides valuable insights about the far-reaching impact of early medical care.

“We know that premature babies are often exposed to repeated medical interventions, light, sound and other stimuli that they would not experience in utero, and we wanted to better understand the long-term effect,” said Kevin Cook, Ph.D., research faculty at the new center and an expert in fetal and neonatal neurology. “Through this study, we can see that early and repeated exposure to pain appears to alter brain development and put children at risk for poor neurodevelopmental outcomes.”

The big picture

Globally, nearly 1 in 10 babies is born preterm, and the Children’s National team was particularly interested in the experience of those born “very” and “extremely” preterm, which is considered any delivery earlier than 32 and 28 weeks of gestation, respectively. While rates of prematurity have been relatively stable, survival rates of these babies have increased remarkably in recent decades, thanks to improved interventions and therapies for preterm infants. Yet neurodevelopmental challenges among these children persist, with noteworthy risks of autism and other neurological deficits.

At Children’s National, researchers are working to understand the mechanism behind those challenges. Given that the late second trimester and the third trimester are critical periods for brain development, the team wanted to study the effects of exposing babies to the world outside the womb early.

The fine print

Dr. Cook and his colleagues collected resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) scans from 148 infants born at least four weeks prematurely, along with 99 infants born full term. The fMRI scans, uniquely suited for studying the resting state of the brain in non-responsive infants, revealed significant hyperconnectivity within the cerebellum, which coordinates muscle activity, and the limbic and paralimbic regions, which govern emotions, motivation and cognitive functions.

Notably, the hyperconnectivity correlated with the number of skin break procedures, including heel pricks, venipunctures and IV placements. When the children returned for developmental evaluations at 18 months, the skin breaks were strongly associated with an increased risk of autism and lower motor and language scores. The toddlers identified at risk for autism had an average of 118 skin breaks, which is significantly more than the average of 65 skin breaks in those who were not at risk.

What’s ahead

Catherine Limperopoulos, Ph.D., director of the Center for Prenatal, Neonatal & Maternal Health Research, said the findings have important implications for understanding how painful NICU procedures can impact long-term outcomes and how physicians conceptualize the risks of care given to preterm babies. She and her team at the center recommend further research into managing pain in premature babies, especially given the limits of current options and the known risk of opioids.

“With this foundational study, we should consider ways to improve pain management for preterm infants and methods to better weigh the interventions used on these incredibly vulnerable patients,” Dr. Limperopoulos said. “Saving their lives is certainly the priority, and the quality of that life should also be forefront of our minds.”

preterm baby

Validating a better way to stratify BPD risk in vulnerable newborns

preterm baby

Factoring in the total number of days that extremely preterm infants require supplemental oxygen and tracking this metric for weeks longer than usual improves clinicians’ ability to predict respiratory outcomes according to bronchopulmonary dysplasia severity.

Factoring in the total number of days that extremely preterm infants require supplemental oxygen and tracking this metric for weeks longer than usual improves clinicians’ ability to predict respiratory outcomes according to bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) severity, a research team led by Children’s National Hospital writes in Scientific Reports. What’s more, the researchers defined a brand-new category (level IV) for newborns who receive supplemental oxygen more than 120 days as a reliable way to predict which infants are at the highest risk of returning to the hospital due to respiratory distress after discharge.

About 1 in 10 U.S. infants is born preterm, before 37 weeks gestation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That includes extremely preterm infants who weigh about 1 lb. at birth. These very low birthweight newborns have paper thin skin, frail hearts and lungs that are not yet mature enough to deliver oxygen throughout the body as needed. Thanks to advances in neocritical care, an increasing number of them survive prematurity, and many develop BPD, a chronic lung disease characterized by abnormal development of the lungs and pulmonary vasculature.

“About half of the babies born prematurely will come back to the hospital within the first year of life with a respiratory infection. The key is identifying them and, potentially, preventing complications in this high-risk population,” says Gustavo Nino, M.D., a Children’s National pulmonologist and the study’s lead author.

For decades, the most common way to stratify BPD risk in these vulnerable newborns has been to see if they require supplemental oxygen at 36 weeks corrected gestational age.

“The problem with this classification is it doesn’t take into account the very premature babies who are on oxygen for much longer than other babies. So, we asked the question: Can we continue risk stratification beyond 36 weeks in order to identify a subset of babies who are at much higher risk of complications,” Dr. Nino says.

The longitudinal cohort study enrolled 188 infants born extremely preterm who were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Children’s National and tracked their data for at least 12 months after discharge. The team used a multidimensional approach that tracked duration of supplemental oxygen during the newborns’ NICU stay as well as scoring lung imaging as an independent marker of BPD severity. To validate the findings, these U.S.-born newborns were matched with 130 infants who were born preterm and hospitalized at two NICUs located in Bogotá, Colombia.

“Babies who are born very preterm and require oxygen beyond 120 days should have expanded ventilation of the lungs and cardiovascular pulmonary system before going home,” he notes. “We need to identify these newborns and optimize their management before they are discharged.”

And, the babies with level IV BPD risk need a different type of evaluation because the complications they experience – including pulmonary hypertension – place them at the highest risk of developing sleep apnea and severe respiratory infection, especially during the first year of life.

“The earlier we identify them, the better their outcome is likely to be,” Dr. Nino says. “We really need to change the risk stratification so we don’t call them all ‘severe’ and treat them the same when there is a subset of newborns who clearly are at a much higher risk for experiencing respiratory complications after hospital discharge.”

In addition to Dr. Nino, Children’s National study co-authors include Awais Mansoor, Ph.D., staff scientist at the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation (SZI); Geovanny F. Perez, M.D., pediatric pulmonologist; Maria Arroyo, M.D., pulmonologist; Xilei Xu Chen, M.D., postdoctoral fellow; Jered Weinstock, pediatric pulmonary fellow; Kyle Salka, MS, research technician; Mariam Said, M.D., neonatologist, and Marius George Linguraru, DPhil, MA, MSc, SZI principal investigator and senior author. Additional co-authors include Ranniery Acuña-Cordero, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Bogotá, Colombia; and Monica P. Sossa-Briceño and Carlos E. Rodríguez-Martínez, both of Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Funding for research described in this post was provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award Nos. HL145669, AI130502 and HL141237. In addition, the NIH has awarded Dr. Nino an RO1 grant to continue this research.

NICU evacuation training baby on a stretcher

Innovative NICU training lauded as ‘best article’ by national journal

NICU evacuation training baby on a stretcher

“Fires, tornadoes and other natural disasters are outside of our team’s control. But it is within our team’s control to train neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) staff to master this necessary skill,” says Lisa Zell, BSN, a clinical educator at Children’s National Hospital.

Research into how to create a robust emergency evacuation preparedness plan and continually train staff that was led by Zell was lauded by editors of The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing. The journal named the study the “best article” for the neonatal section that the prestigious journal published in 2018-19.

“We all hope for the best no matter what the situation, but we also need to extensively plan for the worse,” says Billie Lou Short, M.D., chief of the division of neonatology at Children’s National. “I’m proud that Lisa Zell and co-authors received this much-deserved national recognition on behalf of the nation’s No. 1 NICU.”

Educators worked with a diverse group within Children’s National to design and implement periodic evacuation simulations.

In addition to Zell and Lamia Soghier, M.D., FAAP, CHSE, Children’s National NICU medical unit director, study co-authors include Carmen Blake, BSN; Dawn Brittingham, MSN; and Ann-Marie Brown, MSN.

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newborn in incubator

A bronchopulmonary dysplasia primer to guide clinicians and researchers

newborn in incubator

Six months in the writing, the “Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia Primer” published recently by Nature Reviews will be the gold standard review on this topic for years to come.

The term bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD, was first coined in 1967 to describe a chronic lung disease of preterm newborns after treatment with supplemental oxygen via mechanical ventilation in an effort to save their lives. Back then, infants had 50-50 odds of surviving.

In the intervening years, survival has improved and the characteristics of BPD have evolved. Now, BPD is the most common complication of preterm birth for infants born at fewer than 28 weeks’ gestation, as more and more newborns survive premature birth. Hence, the primer.

“The contributing authors are some of the biggest thinkers on this topic,” says Robin H. Steinhorn, M.D., senior vice president, Center for Hospital-Based Specialties, at Children’s National Hospital and author of the section about BPD diagnosis, screening and prevention. “This document will guide clinical education and investigators in the field of BPD. I anticipate this will be the definitive review article on the subject for the next several years.”

Gestational age and low birth weight remain the most potent predictors of BPD. Some 50,000 extremely low gestational age newborns are born each year in the U.S. About 35% will develop some degree of BPD, according to the primer authors.

These newborns are introduced to life outside the womb well before their lungs are ready. Indeed, the pulmonary surfactants needed for normal lung function – a complex mixture of phospholipids that reduce surface tension within the lungs – don’t differentiate until late in pregnancy. Infants who persistently need respiratory support after the 14th day of life are at the highest risk of being diagnosed with BPD at 36 weeks, the coauthors note.

A number of complicating factors can come into play, including maternal diet; fetal exposure to maternal smoking and infection; structural issues such as pre-eclampsia; acute injury from mechanical ventilation and supplemental oxygen; as well as the body’s halting efforts to repair injured, inflamed lung tissue.

“The good news is the number of the smallest and youngest preterm infants who survive extreme preterm birth has steadily increased. Neonatal intensive care units, like our award-winning NICU, now routinely care for babies born at 22 weeks’ gestation,” Dr. Steinhorn says.

Treatment strategies include:

  • Reducing exposure to intubation and ventilation.
  • Leveraging respiratory stimulants, like caffeine.
  • Postnatal steroid therapy.

“Children’s National Hospital is the only center in our immediate region that provides comprehensive care for infants and children with severe BPD,” Dr. Steinhorn adds. “As the population of vulnerable and fragile infants has grown, we have invested in the equipment and the personnel – including at the Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Center (HSC) – to create a very safe and supportive environment that improves survival and quality of life.”

Some preterm infants spend their first 9 to 10 months of life at Children’s National, and their days are filled with concentrated physical, occupational and speech therapy, as well as music and play therapy to hasten their rehabilitation.

Once their medical condition stabilizes, they transition to HSC to focus more intently on rehabilitation.

“We see HSC as filling a very important role in their care. When our children graduate to HSC, they are going for ongoing care of their lung disease, but also their ongoing rehabilitation. At HSC, they focus on creating the most normal life that we can possibly create and, over time, that is a life free of ventilators and tracheostomy tubes.”

In addition to Dr. Steinhorn, BPD Primer co-authors include Bernard Thébaud, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario; Kara N. Goss, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Matthew Laughon, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Jeffrey A. Whitsett and Alan H. Jobe, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; Steven H. Abman, Children’s Hospital Colorado;  Judy L. Aschner, Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital; Peter G. Davis, The Royal Women’s Hospital; Sharon A. McGrath- Morrow, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Roger F. Soll, University of Vermont.

Financial support for the research described in this post was provided by the National Institutes of Health under grant Nos. U01HL122642, U01HL134745, RO1HL68702, R01HL145679, U01HL12118-01 and K24 HL143283; the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council; the Canadian Institute for Health Research; Stem Cell Network and the Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

newborn baby

Directly measuring function in tiny hearts

newborn baby

The amount of blood the heart pumps in one minute can be directly measured safely in newborns by monitoring changes in blood velocity after injecting saline, indicates the first clinical study of direct cardiac output measurement in newborns.

The amount of blood that the heart pumps in one minute (cardiac output) can be directly measured safely in newborns by monitoring changes in blood velocity after injecting saline, indicates a paper published online Dec. 17, 2019 in the Journal of Pediatrics and Neonatal Medicine. The research, conducted by Children’s National Hospital faculty, is believed to be the first clinical study of direct cardiac output measurement in newborns.

Right now, cardiac output is measured indirectly in the nation’s neonatal intensive care units (NICU) using newborns’ blood pressure, heart rate, urine output and other indirect measures. However, these techniques can produce imprecise readings in children. And the field lacks a feasible “gold standard” to measure cardiac output in newborns.

The COstatus monitor already uses ultrasound dilution – the expected decrease in the velocity of blood when saline is injected, producing a dilution curve. A Children’s National research team used ultrasound dilution in their small pilot study to gauge the feasibility of directly measuring cardiac output in newborns.

“Infants who stand to benefit most from directly monitoring cardiac hemodynamics are often so sick they already have central venous access,” says Khodayar Rais-Bahrami, M.D., an attending neonatologist at Children’s National and the study’s senior author. “Using the COstatus monitor in these children would enable the clinical team to personalize care based on the newborn’s current hemodynamic status, while introducing minimal fluid during measurements,” Dr. Rais-Bahrami adds.

COstatus monitor

The COstatus Monitor uses an extracorporeal loop attached to arterial and venous lines to measure cardiac output using ultrasound dilution. The research team injected 1mL/kg of body temperature saline into the loop and performed up to two measurement sessions daily.

The research team recruited 12 newborns younger than 2 weeks old who already had central venous and arterial access. The venous line of the arteriovenous AV loop is connected to the umbilical venous catheter while the COstatus monitor’s arterial line is connected to the umbilical arterial catheter. During measurement sessions, two injections of solution are injected into the venous loop, allowing for two measures of cardiac output, cardiac index, active circulating volume index, central blood volume index and systemic vascular resistance index.

Infants enrolled in the pilot study underwent up to two measurement sessions per day for up to four days, for a total of 54 cardiac hemodynamic measurements. The newborns ranged from 720 to 3,740 grams in weight and 24 to 41.3 weeks in gestational age.

The infants’ mean cardiac output was 0.43L/min and increased with gestational age. By contrast, the mean cardiac index was 197mL/kg/min and changed little with infants’ increasing maturity – either by gestational age or postnatal age. Two of the study participants were undergoing therapeutic cooling for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and had their measurements taken during cooling and after rewarming.

“Although this study size is small, it demonstrates that this minimally invasive technique can safely be used in newborns to directly measure cardiac hemodynamics,” says Simranjeet S. Sran, M.D., a Children’s National neonatalogist and the study’s lead author. “This technology may allow for more precise and personalized care of critically ill newborns in a range of disease states – real-world utility in NICUs that serve some of the youngest and sickest newborns,” Dr. Sran adds.

The research team notes that direct measurement by ultrasound dilution revealed a stark increase in cardiac index as infants undergoing therapeutic hypothermia were rewarmed, raising questions about whether indirect measures using other technology, such as echocardiography, underestimate hypothermia’s effect on hemodynamics.

In addition to Drs. Rais-Bahrami and Sran, Mariam Said, M.D., also a Children’s National neonatalogist, was a study co-author.

mannequins in a sled

Training teams for timely NICU evacuation

mannequins in a sled

From June 2015 to August 2017, 213 members of NICU staff took part in simulated drills, honing their skills by practicing with mannequins with varying levels of acuity.

In late August 2011, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake – the strongest east of the Mississippi since 1944 – shook Washington, D.C., with such force that it cracked the Washington Monument and damaged the National Cathedral.

On the sixth floor of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Children’s National in Washington, D.C., staff felt the hospital swaying from side to side.

After the shaking stopped, they found the natural disaster exposed another fault: The unit’s 200-plus staff members were not all equally knowledgeable or confident regarding the unit’s plan for evacuating its 66 newborns or their own specific role during an emergency evacuation.

More than 900 very sick children are transferred to Children’s National NICU from across the region each year, and a high percentage rely on machines to do the work that their tiny lungs and hearts are not yet strong enough to do on their own.

Transporting fragile babies down six flights of stairs along with vital equipment that keeps them alive requires planning, teamwork and training.  

“Fires, tornadoes and other natural disasters are outside of our team’s control. But it is within our team’s control to train NICU staff to master this necessary skill,” says Lisa Zell, BSN, a clinical educator. Zell is also lead author of a Children’s National article featured on the cover of the July/September 2019 edition of The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing. “Emergency evacuations trigger safety concerns for patients as well as our own staff. A robust preparedness plan that is continually improved can alleviate such fears,” Zell adds.

Children’s National is the nation’s No. 1 NICU, and its educators worked with a diverse group within Children’s National to design and implement periodic evacuation simulations. From June 2015 to August 2017, 213 members of NICU staff took part in simulated drills, honing their skills by practicing with mannequins with varying levels of acuity.

“Each simulation has three objectives. First, the trainee needs to demonstrate knowledge of their own individual role in an evacuation. Second, they need to know the evacuation plan so well they can explain it to someone else. And finally, they need to demonstrate that if they had to evacuate the NICU that day, they could do it safely,” says Lamia Soghier, M.D., FAAP, CHSE, NICU medical director and the study’s senior author.

The two-hour evacuation simulation training at Children’s National begins with a group prebrief. During this meeting, NICU educators discuss the overarching evacuation plan, outline individual roles and give a hands-on demonstration of all of the evacuation equipment.

This equipment includes emergency backpacks, a drip calculation sheet and an emergency phrase card. Emergency supply backpacks are filled with everything that each patient needs post evacuation, from suction catheters, butterfly needles and suture removal kits to flashlights with batteries.

Each room is equipped with that emergency backpack which is secured in a locked cabinet. Every nurse has a key to access the cabinet at any time.

Vertical evacuation scenarios are designed to give trainees a real-world experience. Mannequins that are intubated are evacuated by tray, allowing the nurse to provide continuous oxygen with the use of a resuscitation bag during the evacuation. Evacuation by sled allows three patients to be transported simultaneously. Patients with uncomplicated conditions can be lifted out of their cribs and swiftly carried to safety.

Teams also learn how to calm the nerves of frazzled parents and enlist their help. “Whatever we need to do, we will to get these babies out alive,” Joan Paribello, a clinical educator, tells 15 staff assembled for a recent prebriefing session.

An “X” on the door designates rooms already evacuated. A designated charge nurse and another member of the medical team remain in the unit until the final patient is evacuated to make a final sweep.

The simulated training ends with a debrief session during which issues that arose during the evacuation are identified and corrected prior to subsequent simulated trainings, improving the safety and expediency of the exercise.

Indeed, as Children’s National NICU staff mastered these evacuation simulations, evacuation times dropped from 21 minutes to as little as 16 minutes. Equally important, post evacuation surveys indicate:

  • 86% of staff report being more comfortable in being able to safely evacuate the Children’s National NICU
  • 94% of NICU staff understand the overall evacuation plan and
  • 97% of NICU staff know their individual role during an evacuation.

“One of the most surprising revelations regarded one of the most basic functions in any NICU,” Dr. Soghier adds. “Once intravenous tubing is removed from its pump, the rate at which infusions drip needs to be calculated manually. We created laminated cards with pre-calculated drip rates to enable life-saving fluid delivery to continue without interruption.”

In addition to Zell and Dr. Soghier, study co-authors include Carmen Blake, BSN; Dawn Brittingham, MSN; and Ann-Marie Brown, MSN.

Autonomic nervous system appears to function well regardless of mode of childbirth

Late in pregnancy, the human body carefully prepares fetuses for the rigors of life outside the protection of the womb. Levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, ramp up and spike during labor. Catecholamines, another stress hormone, also rise at birth, helping to kick start the necessary functions that the baby will need to regulate breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure and energy metabolism levels at delivery. Oxytocin surges, promoting contractions for the mother during labor and stimulating milk production after the infant is born.

These processes also can play a role in preparing the fetal brain during the transition to life outside the womb by readying the autonomic nervous system and adapting its cerebral connections. The autonomic nervous system acts like the body’s autopilot, taking in information it needs to ensure that internal organs run steadily without willful action, such as ensuring the heart beats and eyelids blink at steady intervals. Its yin, the sympathetic division, stimulates body processes while its yang, the parasympathetic division, inhibits them.

Infants born preterm have reduced autonomic function compared with their full-term peers and also face possible serious neurodevelopmental impairment later in life. But is there a difference in autonomic nervous system function for full-term babies after undergoing labor compared with infants delivered via cesarean section (C-section)?

A team from the Children’s National Inova Collaborative Research Program (CNICA) – a research collaboration between Children’s National in Washington, D.C., and Inova Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Virginia – set out to answer that question in a paper published online July 30, 2019, in Scientific Reports.

They enrolled newborns who had experienced normal, full-term pregnancies and recorded their brain function and heart performance when they were about 2 days old. Infants whose conditions were fragile enough to require observation in the neonatal intensive care unit were excluded from the study. Of 167 infants recruited for the prospective cohort study, 118 newborns had sufficiently robust data to include them in the research.  Of these newborns:

  • 62 (52.5%) were born by vaginal delivery
  • 22 (18.6%) started out with vaginal delivery but ultimately switched to C-section based on failure to progress, failed labor induction or fetal intolerance to labor
  • And 34 (28.8%) were born by elective C-section.

The CNICA research team swaddled infants for comfort and slipped electrode nets over their tiny heads to simultaneously measure heart rate variability and electrocortical function through non-invasive techniques. The team hypothesized that infants who had been exposed to labor would have enhanced autonomic tone and higher cortical electroencephalogram (EEG) power than babies born via C-section.

“In a low-risk group of babies born full-term, the autonomic nervous system and cortical systems appear to function well regardless of whether infants were exposed to labor prior to birth,” says Sarah B. Mulkey, M.D., Ph.D., a fetal–neonatal neurologist in the Division of Fetal and Transitional Medicine at Children’s National and the study’s lead author.

However, infants born by C-section following a period of labor had significantly increased accelerations in their heart rates. And the infants born by C-section during labor had significantly lower relative gamma frequency EEG at 25.2 hours old compared with the other two groups studied.

“Together these findings point to a possible increased stress response and arousal difference in infants who started with vaginal delivery and finished delivery with C-section,” Dr. Mulkey says. “There is so little published research about the neurologic impacts of the mode of delivery, so our work helps to provide a normal reference point for future studies looking at high-risk infants, including babies born preterm.”

Because the research team saw little differences in autonomic tone or other EEG frequencies when the infants were 1 day old, future research will explore these measures at different points in the newborns’ early life as well as the role of the sleep-wake cycle on heart rate variability.

In addition to Dr. Mulkey, study co-authors include Srinivas Kota, Ph.D., Rathinaswamy B. Govindan, Ph.D., Tareq Al-Shargabi, MSc, Christopher B. Swisher, BS, Laura Hitchings, BScM, Stephanie Russo, BS, Nicole Herrera, MPH, Robert McCarter, ScD, and Senior Author Adré  J. du Plessis, M.B.Ch.B., MPH, all of Children’s National; and Augustine Eze Jr., MS, G. Larry Maxwell, M.D., and Robin Baker, M.D., all of Inova Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

Financial support for research described in this post was provided by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences under award numbers UL1TR001876 and KL2TR001877.

Catherine Limperopoulos

Breastfeeding boosts metabolites important for brain growth

Catherine Limperopoulos

“Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a non-invasive imaging technique that describes the chemical composition of specific brain structures, enables us to measure metabolites that may play a critical role for growth and explain what makes breastfeeding beneficial for newborns’ developing brains,” says Catherine Limperopoulos, Ph.D.

Micro-preemies who primarily consume breast milk have significantly higher levels of metabolites important for brain growth and development, according to sophisticated imaging conducted by an interdisciplinary research team at Children’s National.

“Our previous research established that vulnerable preterm infants who are fed breast milk early in life have improved brain growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes. It was unclear what makes breastfeeding so beneficial for newborns’ developing brains,” says Catherine Limperopoulos, Ph.D., director of MRI Research of the Developing Brain at Children’s National. “Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a non-invasive imaging technique that describes the chemical composition of specific brain structures, enables us to measure metabolites essential for growth and answer that lingering question.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 10 U.S. infants is born preterm. The Children’s research team presented their findings during the Pediatric Academic Societies 2019 Annual Meeting.

The research-clinicians enrolled babies who were very low birthweight (less than 1,500 grams) and 32 weeks gestational age or younger at birth when they were admitted to Children’s neonatal intensive care unit in the first week of life. The team gathered data from the right frontal white matter and the cerebellum – a brain region that enables people to maintain balance and proper muscle coordination and that supports high-order cognitive functions.

Each chemical has its own a unique spectral fingerprint. The team generated light signatures for key metabolites and calculated the quantity of each metabolite. Of note:

  • Cerebral white matter spectra showed significantly greater levels of inositol (a molecule similar to glucose) for babies fed breast milk, compared with babies fed formula.
  • Cerebellar spectra had significantly greater creatine levels for breastfed babies compared with infants fed formula.
  • And the percentage of days infants were fed breast milk was associated with significantly greater levels of both creatine and choline, a water soluble nutrient.

“Key metabolite levels ramp up during the times babies’ brains experience exponential growth,” says Katherine M. Ottolini, the study’s lead author. “Creatine facilitates recycling of ATP, the cell’s energy currency. Seeing greater quantities of this metabolite denotes more rapid changes and higher cellular maturation. Choline is a marker of cell membrane turnover; when new cells are generated, we see choline levels rise.”

Already, Children’s National leverages an array of imaging options that describe normal brain growth, which makes it easier to spot when fetal or neonatal brain development goes awry, enabling earlier intervention and more effective treatment. “Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy may serve as an important additional tool to advance our understanding of how breastfeeding boosts neurodevelopment for preterm infants,” Limperopoulos adds.

Pediatric Academic Societies 2019 Annual Meeting presentation

  • “Improved cerebral and cerebellar metabolism in breast milk-fed VLBW infants.”
    • Monday, April 29, 2019, 3:30–3:45 p.m. (EST)

Katherine M. Ottolini, lead author; Nickie Andescavage, M.D., Attending, Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine and co-author; Kushal Kapse, research and development staff engineer and co-author; Sudeepta Basu, M.D., neonatologist and co-author; and Catherine Limperopoulos, Ph.D., director of MRI Research of the Developing Brain and senior author, all of Children’s National.

Ololade Okito

Parents of older, healthier newborns with less social support less resilient

Ololade Okito

“We know that having a child hospitalized in the NICU can be a high-stress time for families,” says Ololade Okito, M.D., lead author of the cross-sectional study. “The good news is that as parental resiliency scores rise, we see a correlation with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Parents of older, healthier newborns who had less social support were less resilient during their child’s hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), a finding that correlates with more symptoms of depression and anxiety, according to Children’s research presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies 2019 Annual Meeting.

Resiliency is the natural born, yet adaptable ability of people to bounce back in the face of significant adversity. Published research indicates that higher resilience is associated with reduced psychological distress, but the phenomenon had not been studied extensively in parents of children hospitalized in a NICU.

“We know that having a child hospitalized in the NICU can be a high-stress time for families,” says Ololade Okito, M.D., lead author of the cross-sectional study. “The good news is that as parental resiliency scores rise, we see a correlation with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. Parents who feel they have good family support also have higher resilience scores.”

The project is an offshoot of a larger study examining the impact of peer mentoring by other NICU parents who have experienced the same emotional rollercoaster ride as their tiny infants sometimes thrived and other times struggled.

The research team enrolled 35 parents whose newborns were 34 weeks gestation and younger and administered a battery of validated surveys, including:

  • The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale
  • State-Trait Anxiety Inventory
  • Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support
  • Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and
  • Parent Stress Scale – NICU

Forty percent of these parents had high resilience scores; parents whose infants were a mean of 27.3 gestational weeks and who had more severe health challenges reported higher resilience. Another 40% of these parents had elevated depressive symptoms, while 31% screened positive for anxiety. Parental distress impairs the quality of parent-child interactions and long-term child development, the research team writes.

“Higher NICU-related stress correlates with greater symptoms of depression and anxiety in parents,” says Lamia Soghier, M.D., MEd, medical director of Children’s neonatal intensive care unit and the study’s senior author. “Specifically targeting interventions to these parents may help to improve their resilience, decrease the stress of parenting a child in the NICU and give these kids a healthier start to life.”

Pediatric Academic Societies 2019 Annual Meeting presentation

  • “Parental resilience and psychological distress in the neonatal intensive care unit (PARENT) study”
    • Tuesday, April 30, 2019, 7:30 a.m. (EST)

Ololade Okito, M.D., lead author; Yvonne Yui, M.D., co-author; Nicole Herrera, MPH, co-author; Randi Streisand, Ph.D., chief, Division of Psychology and Behavioral Health, and co-author; Carrie Tully, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and co-author; Karen Fratantoni, M.D., MPH, medical director, Complex Care Program, and co-author; and Lamia Soghier, M.D., MEd, medical unit director, neonatal intensive care unit, and senior author; all of Children’s National.

Billie Lou Short and Kurt Newman at Research and Education Week

Research and Education Week honors innovative science

Billie Lou Short and Kurt Newman at Research and Education Week

Billie Lou Short, M.D., received the Ninth Annual Mentorship Award in Clinical Science.

People joke that Billie Lou Short, M.D., chief of Children’s Division of Neonatology, invented extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, known as ECMO for short. While Dr. Short did not invent ECMO, under her leadership Children’s National was the first pediatric hospital to use it. And over decades Children’s staff have perfected its use to save the lives of tiny, vulnerable newborns by temporarily taking over for their struggling hearts and lungs. For two consecutive years, Children’s neonatal intensive care unit has been named the nation’s No. 1 for newborns by U.S. News & World Report. “Despite all of these accomplishments, Dr. Short’s best legacy is what she has done as a mentor to countless trainees, nurses and faculty she’s touched during their careers. She touches every type of clinical staff member who has come through our neonatal intensive care unit,” says An Massaro, M.D., director of residency research.

For these achievements, Dr. Short received the Ninth Annual Mentorship Award in Clinical Science.

Anna Penn, M.D., Ph.D., has provided new insights into the central role that the placental hormone allopregnanolone plays in orderly fetal brain development, and her research team has created novel experimental models that mimic some of the brain injuries often seen in very preterm babies – an essential step that informs future neuroprotective strategies. Dr. Penn, a clinical neonatologist and developmental neuroscientist, “has been a primary adviser for 40 mentees throughout their careers and embodies Children’s core values of Compassion, Commitment and Connection,” says Claire-Marie Vacher, Ph.D.

For these achievements, Dr. Penn was selected to receive the Ninth Annual Mentorship Award in Basic and Translational Science.

The mentorship awards for Drs. Short and Penn were among dozens of honors given in conjunction with “Frontiers in Innovation,” the Ninth Annual Research and Education Week (REW) at Children’s National. In addition to seven keynote lectures, more than 350 posters were submitted from researchers – from high-school students to full-time faculty – about basic and translational science, clinical research, community-based research, education, training and quality improvement; five poster presenters were showcased via Facebook Live events hosted by Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Two faculty members won twice: Vicki Freedenberg, Ph.D., APRN, for research about mindfulness-based stress reduction and Adeline (Wei Li) Koay, MBBS, MSc, for research related to HIV. So many women at every stage of their research careers took to the stage to accept honors that Naomi L.C. Luban, M.D., Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, quipped that “this day is power to women.”

Here are the 2019 REW award winners:

2019 Elda Y. Arce Teaching Scholars Award
Barbara Jantausch, M.D.
Lowell Frank, M.D.

Suzanne Feetham, Ph.D., FAA, Nursing Research Support Award
Vicki Freedenberg, Ph.D., APRN, for “Psychosocial and biological effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention in adolescents with CHD/CIEDs: a randomized control trial”
Renee’ Roberts Turner for “Peak and nadir experiences of mid-level nurse leaders”

2019-2020 Global Health Initiative Exploration in Global Health Awards
Nathalie Quion, M.D., for “Latino youth and families need assessment,” conducted in Washington
Sonia Voleti for “Handheld ultrasound machine task shifting,” conducted in Micronesia
Tania Ahluwalia, M.D., for “Simulation curriculum for emergency medicine,” conducted in India
Yvonne Yui for “Designated resuscitation teams in NICUs,” conducted in Ghana
Xiaoyan Song, Ph.D., MBBS, MSc, “Prevention of hospital-onset infections in PICUs,” conducted in China

Ninth Annual Research and Education Week Poster Session Awards

Basic and Translational Science
Faculty: Adeline (Wei Li) Koay, MBBS, MSc, for “Differences in the gut microbiome of HIV-infected versus HIV-exposed, uninfected infants”
Faculty: Hayk Barseghyan, Ph.D., for “Composite de novo Armenian human genome assembly and haplotyping via optical mapping and ultra-long read sequencing”
Staff: Damon K. McCullough, BS, for “Brain slicer: 3D-printed tissue processing tool for pediatric neuroscience research”
Staff: Antonio R. Porras, Ph.D., for “Integrated deep-learning method for genetic syndrome screening using facial photographs”
Post docs/fellows/residents: Lung Lau, M.D., for “A novel, sprayable and bio-absorbable sealant for wound dressings”
Post docs/fellows/residents: Kelsey F. Sugrue, Ph.D., for “HECTD1 is required for growth of the myocardium secondary to placental insufficiency”
Graduate students: Erin R. Bonner, BA, for “Comprehensive mutation profiling of pediatric diffuse midline gliomas using liquid biopsy”
High school/undergraduate students: Ali Sarhan for “Parental somato-gonadal mosaic genetic variants are a source of recurrent risk for de novo disorders and parental health concerns: a systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis”

Clinical Research
Faculty: Amy Hont, M.D., for “Ex vivo expanded multi-tumor antigen specific T-cells for the treatment of solid tumors”
Faculty: Lauren McLaughlin, M.D., for “EBV/LMP-specific T-cells maintain remissions of T- and B-cell EBV lymphomas after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation”

Staff: Iman A. Abdikarim, BA, for “Timing of allergenic food introduction among African American and Caucasian children with food allergy in the FORWARD study”
Staff: Gelina M. Sani, BS, for “Quantifying hematopoietic stem cells towards in utero gene therapy for treatment of sickle cell disease in fetal cord blood”
Post docs/fellows/residents: Amy H. Jones, M.D., for “To trach or not trach: exploration of parental conflict, regret and impacts on quality of life in tracheostomy decision-making”
Graduate students: Alyssa Dewyer, BS, for “Telemedicine support of cardiac care in Northern Uganda: leveraging hand-held echocardiography and task-shifting”
Graduate students: Natalie Pudalov, BA, “Cortical thickness asymmetries in MRI-abnormal pediatric epilepsy patients: a potential metric for surgery outcome”
High school/undergraduate students: Kia Yoshinaga for “Time to rhythm detection during pediatric cardiac arrest in a pediatric emergency department”

Community-Based Research
Faculty: Adeline (Wei Li) Koay, MBBS, MSc, for “Recent trends in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area”
Staff: Gia M. Badolato, MPH, for “STI screening in an urban ED based on chief complaint”
Post docs/fellows/residents: Christina P. Ho, M.D., for “Pediatric urinary tract infection resistance patterns in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area”
Graduate students: Noushine Sadeghi, BS, “Racial/ethnic disparities in receipt of sexual health services among adolescent females”

Education, Training and Program Development
Faculty: Cara Lichtenstein, M.D., MPH, for “Using a community bus trip to increase knowledge of health disparities”
Staff: Iana Y. Clarence, MPH, for “TEACHing residents to address child poverty: an innovative multimodal curriculum”
Post docs/fellows/residents: Johanna Kaufman, M.D., for “Inpatient consultation in pediatrics: a learning tool to improve communication”
High school/undergraduate students: Brett E. Pearson for “Analysis of unanticipated problems in CNMC human subjects research studies and implications for process improvement”

Quality and Performance Improvement
Faculty: Vicki Freedenberg, Ph.D., APRN, for “Implementing a mindfulness-based stress reduction curriculum in a congenital heart disease program”
Staff: Caleb Griffith, MPH, for “Assessing the sustainability of point-of-care HIV screening of adolescents in pediatric emergency departments”
Post docs/fellows/residents: Rebecca S. Zee, M.D., Ph.D., for “Implementation of the Accelerated Care of Torsion (ACT) pathway: a quality improvement initiative for testicular torsion”
Graduate students: Alysia Wiener, BS, for “Latency period in image-guided needle bone biopsy in children: a single center experience”

View images from the REW2019 award ceremony.

Robin Steinhorn in the NICU

Coming together as a team for the good of the baby

Robin Steinhorn in the NICU

Children’s National has a new program to care for children who have severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a serious complication of preterm birth.

Around the 1-year-old’s crib is a tight circle of smiling adults, and at the foot of his bed is a menagerie of plush animals, each a different color and texture and shape to spark his curiosity and sharpen his intellect.

Gone are the days a newborn with extremely complex medical needs like Elijah would transfer from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to the pediatric intensive care unit and transition through a couple of other hospital units by the time he was discharged. Gone are the days when he’d see a variety of new physician faces at every stop. And gone are the days he’d be confined to his room, divorced from the sights and sounds and scents of the outside world, stimulation that helps little baby’s neural networks grow stronger.

Children’s National has a new program designed to meet the unique needs of children like Elijah who have severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a common complication of preterm birth.

“It’s more forward-thinking – and I mean thinking for the future of each individual baby, and it’s allowing the baby to have one team and one location to take advantage of a deep knowledge of and relationship with that baby and family,” says Robin Steinhorn, M.D. Dr. Steinhorn is senior vice president of the Center for Hospital-Based Specialties and one of Children’s multidisciplinary team members who visited Elijah’s bed twice weekly during his lengthy hospitalization and who continues to see him regularly during outpatient visits.

“The pulmonologist, the neonatologist, the respiratory therapist, the physical therapist, the dietitian, the cardiologist – we all come as a team to work together for the good of the baby,” Dr. Steinhorn adds. “We stick with these babies through thick and thin. We will stick with that baby with this team and this location until they are ready to go home – and beyond.”

BPD, a serious lung condition, mostly affects extremely low birthweight preterm babies whose lungs were designed to continue developing inside the womb until the pregnancy reaches full term. Often born months before their due dates, these extremely vulnerable newborns have immature organs, including the lungs, which are not ready for the task of breathing air. Children’s program targets infants who experience respiratory failure from BPD. The respiratory support required for these infants ranges from oxygen delivered through a nasal cannula to mechanical ventilators.

Robin Steinhorn and Colleague

“It’s more forward-thinking – and I mean thinking for the future of each individual baby, and it’s allowing the baby to have one team and one location to take advantage of a deep knowledge of and relationship with that baby and family,” says Robin Steinhorn, M.D.

About 1 percent of all preterm births are extremely low birthweight, or less than 1,500 grams. Within that group, up to 40 percent will develop BPD. While they represent a small percentage of overall births, these very sick babies need comprehensive, focused care for the first few years of their lives. And some infants with severe BPD also have pulmonary hypertension which, at Children’s National, is co-managed by cardiology and pulmonary specialists.

Children’s BPD team not only focuses on the child’s survival and medical care, they focus on the neurodevelopmental and social care that a baby needs to thrive. From enhanced nutrition to occupational and physical therapy to a regular sleep cycle, the goal is to help these babies achieve their full potential.

“These babies are at tremendous risk for long-term developmental issues. Everything we do is geared to alleviate that,” adds John T. Berger III, M.D., director of Children’s Pulmonary Hypertension Program.

“Our NICU care is more focused, comprehensive and consistent,” agrees Mariam Said, M.D., a neonatologist on the team. “We’re also optimizing the timing of care and diagnostic testing that will directly impact health outcomes.”

Leaving no detail overlooked, the team also ensures that infants have age-appropriate developmental stimuli, like toys, and push for early mobility by getting children up and out of bed and into a chair or riding in a wagon.

“The standard approach is to keep the baby in a room with limited physical or occupational therapy and a lack of appropriate stimulation,” says Geovanny Perez, M.D., a pulmonologist on the team. “A normal baby interacts with their environment inside the home and outside the home. We aim to mimic that within the hospital environment.”

Dr. Steinhorn, who had long dreamed of creating this comprehensive team care approach adds that “it’s been so gratifying to see it adopted and embraced so quickly by Children’s NICU caregivers.”

Preemie Baby

Getting micro-preemie growth trends on track

Preemie Baby

According to Children’s research presented during the Institute for Healthcare Improvement 2018 Scientific Symposium, standardizing feeding practices – including the timing for fortifying breast milk and formula with essential elements like zinc and protein – improves growth trends for the tiniest preterm infants.

About 1 in 10 infants is born before 37 weeks gestation. These premature babies have a variety of increased health risks, including deadly infections and poor lung function.

Emerging research suggests that getting their length and weight back on track could help. According to Children’s research presented during the Institute for Healthcare Improvement 2018 Scientific Symposium, standardizing feeding practices – including the timing for fortifying breast milk and formula with essential elements like zinc and protein – improves growth trends for the tiniest preterm infants.

The quality-improvement project at Children’s National Health System targeted very low birth weight infants, who weigh less than 3.3 pounds (1,500 grams) at birth. These fragile infants are born well before their internal organs, lungs, brain or their digestive systems have fully developed and are at high risk for ongoing nutritional challenges, health conditions like necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and overall poor development.

The research team measured progress by tracking the micro-preemies’ mean delta weight Z-score for weight gain, which measures nutritional status.

“In this cohort, mean delta weight Z-scores improved by 43 percent, rising from -1.8 to the goal of -1.0, when we employed an array of interventions. We saw the greatest improvement, 64 percent, among preterm infants who had been born between 26 to 28 weeks gestation,” says Michelande Ridoré, MS, Children’s NICU quality-improvement program lead who presented the group’s preliminary findings. “It’s very encouraging to see improved growth trends just six months after introducing these targeted interventions and to maintain these improvements for 16 months.”

Within Children’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), micro-preemies live in an environment that mimics the womb, with dimmed lighting and warmed incubators covered by blankets to muffle extraneous noise. The multidisciplinary team relied on a number of interventions to improve micro-preemies’ long-term nutritional outcomes, including:

  • Reducing variations in how individual NICU health care providers approach feeding practices
  • Fortifying breast milk (and formula when breast milk was not available), which helps these extra lean newborns add muscle and strengthen bones
  • Early initiation of nutrition that passes through the intestine (enteral feeds)
  • Re-educating all members of the infants’ care teams about the importance of standardized feeding and
  • Providing a decision aid about feeding intolerance.

Dietitians were included in the daily rounds, during which the multidisciplinary team discusses each infant’s care plan at their room, and used traffic light colors to describe how micro-preemies were progressing with their nutritional goals. It’s common for these newborns to lose weight in the first few days of life.

  • Infants in the “green” zone had regained their birth weight by day 14 of life and possible interventions included adjusting how many calories and protein they consumed daily to reflect their new weight.
  • Infants in the “yellow” zone between day 15 to 18 of life remained lighter than what they weighed at birth and were trending toward lower delta Z-scores. In addition to assessing the infant’s risk factors, the team could increase calories consumed per day and add fortification, among other possible interventions.
  • Infants in the “red” zone remained below their birth weight after day 19 of life and recorded depressed delta Z-scores. These infants saw the most intensive interventions, which could include conversations with the neonatologist and R.N. to discuss strategies to reverse the infant’s failure to grow.

Future research will explore how the nutritional interventions impact newborns with NEC, a condition characterized by death of tissue in the intestine. These infants face significant challenges gaining length and weight.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement 2018 Scientific Symposium presentation

  • “Improved growth of very low birthweight infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.”

Caitlin Forsythe, MS, BSN, RNC-NIC, NICU clinical program coordinator, Neonatology, and lead author; Michelande Ridoré, MS, NICU quality-improvement program lead; Victoria Catalano Snelgrove, RDN, LD, CNSC, CLC, pediatric clinical dietitian; Rebecca Vander Veer, RD, LD, CNSC, CLC, pediatric clinical dietitian; Erin Fauer, RDN, LD, CNSC, CLC, pediatric clinical dietitian; Judith Campbell, RNC, IBCLC, NICU lactation consultant; Eresha Bluth, MHA, project administrator; Anna Penn, M.D., Ph.D., neonatologist; Lamia Soghier, M.D., MEd, Medical Unit Director, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; and Mary Revenis, M.D., NICU medical lead on nutrition and senior author; all of Children’s National Health System.

new mom with baby

Fighting perinatal mood and anxiety disorders on multiple levels

new mom with baby

Over the past several decades, it’s become increasingly recognized that perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), including postpartum depression, are more than just “baby blues.” They’re the most common complication of childbirth in the U.S., affecting about 14 percent of women in their lifetimes and up to 50 percent in some specific populations. PMADs can lead to a variety of adverse outcomes for both mothers and their babies, including poor breastfeeding rates, poor maternal-infant bonding, lower infant immunization rates and maternal suicides that account for up to 20 percent of postpartum deaths.

But while it’s obvious that PMADs are a significant problem, finding a way to solve this issue is far from clear. In a policy statement published December 2018 in the journal Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that pediatric medical homes coordinate more effectively with prenatal providers to ensure PMAD screening occurs for new mothers at well-child checkups throughout the first several weeks and months of infancy and use community resources and referrals to ensure women suffering with these disorders receive follow-up treatment.

To help solve the huge issue of PMADs requires a more comprehensive approach, suggests Lenore Jarvis, M.D., MEd, an emergency medicine specialist at Children’s National Health System. A poster that Dr. Jarvis and colleagues from Children’s Perinatal Mental Health Taskforce recently presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics 2018 National Convention and Exhibit in Orlando, Florida, details the integrated care to help women with PMADs that originated at Children’s National and is being offered at several levels, including individual, interpersonal, organizational, community and policy. The poster was ranked best in its section for the Council on Early Childhood.

At the base level of care for mothers with possible PMADs, Dr. Jarvis says, are the one-on-one screenings that take place in primary care clinics. Currently, all five of Children’s primary care clinics screen for mental health concerns at annual visits. At the 2-week, 1-, 2-, 4- and 6-month visits, mothers are screened for PMADs using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, a validated tool that’s long been used to gauge the risk of postpartum depression. In addition, recent studies at Children’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and emergency department (ED) suggest that performing PMAD screenings in these settings as well could help catch even more women with these disorders: About 45 percent of parents had a positive screen for depression at NICU discharge, and about 27 percent of recent mothers had positive screens for PMADs in the ED.

To further these efforts, Children’s National recently started a Perinatal Mental Health Taskforce to promote multidisciplinary collaboration and open communication with providers among multiple hospital divisions. This taskforce is working together to apply lessons learned from screening in primary care, the NICU and the ED to discuss best practices and develop hospital-wide recommendations. They’re also sharing their experiences with hospitals across the country to help them develop best practices for helping women with PMADs at their own institutions.

Furthering its commitment to PMAD screening, Children’s National leadership set a goal of increasing screening in primary care by 15 percent for fiscal year 2018 – then exceeded it. Children’s National is also helping women with PMADs far outside the hospital’s walls by developing a PMAD screening toolkit for other providers in Washington and across the country and by connecting with community partners through the DC Collaborative for Mental Health in Pediatric Primary Care. In April 2019, the hospital will host a regional perinatal mental health conference that not only will include its own staff but also staff from other local hospitals and other providers who care for new mothers, including midwives, social workers, psychologists, community health workers and doulas.

Finally, on a federal level, Dr. Jarvis and colleagues are part of efforts to obtain additional resources for PMAD screening, referral and treatment. They successfully advocated for Congress to fully fund the Screening and Treatment for Maternal Depression program, part of the 21st Century Cures Act. And locally, they provided testimony to help establish a task force to address PMADs in Washington.

Together, Dr. Jarvis says, these efforts are making a difference for women with PMADs and their families.

“All this work demonstrates that you can take a problem that is very personal, this individual experience with PMADS, and work together with a multidisciplinary team in collaboration to really have an impact and promote change across the board,” she adds.

In addition to Dr. Jarvis, the lead author, Children’s co-authors include Penelope Theodorou, MPH; Sarah Barclay Hoffman, MPP, Program Manager, Child Health Advocacy Institute; Melissa Long, M.D.; Lamia Soghier M.D., MEd, NICU Medical Unit Director; Karen Fratantoni M.D., MPH; and Senior Author Lee Beers, M.D., Medical Director, Municipal and Regional Affairs, Child Health Advocacy Institute.

QUILT conference

Children’s National hosts Quality Improvement Leadership Training Course

QUILT conference

In October 2018, Children’s National hosted 20 neonatologists from 15 hospitals in China for a 10 day Quality Improvement Leadership Training Course focused on quality improvement principles and methodology. The course also featured presentations on hospital-wide quality improvement work and included speakers from the Quality & Safety Department, Nursing Quality, and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The Performance Improvement team worked with the attendees on their own projects, such as reducing antibiotic use and increasing family-centered care in the NICU. The attendees then presented at the end of the course to their colleagues, as well as to five hospital presidents visiting from China.

Making the grade: Children’s National is nation’s Top 5 children’s hospital

Children’s National rose in rankings to become the nation’s Top 5 children’s hospital according to the 2018-19 Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll released June 26, 2018, by U.S. News & World Report. Additionally, for the second straight year, Children’s Neonatology division led by Billie Lou Short, M.D., ranked No. 1 among 50 neonatal intensive care units ranked across the nation.

Children’s National also ranked in the Top 10 in six additional services:

For the eighth year running, Children’s National ranked in all 10 specialty services, which underscores its unwavering commitment to excellence, continuous quality improvement and unmatched pediatric expertise throughout the organization.

“It’s a distinct honor for Children’s physicians, nurses and employees to be recognized as the nation’s Top 5 pediatric hospital. Children’s National provides the nation’s best care for kids and our dedicated physicians, neonatologists, surgeons, neuroscientists and other specialists, nurses and other clinical support teams are the reason why,” says Kurt Newman, M.D., Children’s President and CEO. “All of the Children’s staff is committed to ensuring that our kids and families enjoy the very best health outcomes today and for the rest of their lives.”

The excellence of Children’s care is made possible by our research insights and clinical innovations. In addition to being named to the U.S. News Honor Roll, a distinction awarded to just 10 children’s centers around the nation, Children’s National is a two-time Magnet® designated hospital for excellence in nursing and is a Leapfrog Group Top Hospital. Children’s ranks seventh among pediatric hospitals in funding from the National Institutes of Health, with a combined $40 million in direct and indirect funding, and transfers the latest research insights from the bench to patients’ bedsides.

“The 10 pediatric centers on this year’s Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll deliver exceptional care across a range of specialties and deserve to be highlighted,” says Ben Harder, chief of health analysis at U.S. News. “Day after day, these hospitals provide state-of-the-art medical expertise to children with complex conditions. Their U.S. News’ rankings reflect their commitment to providing high-quality care.”

The 12th annual rankings recognize the top 50 pediatric facilities across the U.S. in 10 pediatric specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology and urology. Hospitals received points for being ranked in a specialty, and higher-ranking hospitals receive more points. The Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll recognizes the 10 hospitals that received the most points overall.

This year’s rankings will be published in the U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals 2019” guidebook, available for purchase in late September.

distressed woman holding baby

When depression lingers after the NICU

distressed woman holding baby

Roughly half a million babies end up in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) each year in the U.S., often sending their parents on a wild emotional rollercoaster. Like other new parents, many parents feel symptoms of depression when their child leaves the NICU. For the majority, these depressive symptoms lift over time. But for others, depression can persist, affecting their well-being and relationships, including those with their new babies.

Thus far, it’s been unclear which parents are at a higher risk for this lasting depression. However, a new study led by Children’s researchers and presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies 2018 annual meeting suggests that parents whose depression lingers six months after their child’s NICU discharge tend to share certain demographic characteristics: They’re younger, have less education and care for more than one child.

“Using a validated screening tool, we found that 40 percent of parents in our analyses were positive for depression at the time their newborn was discharged from the NICU,” says Karen Fratantoni, M.D., M.P.H., a Children’s pediatrician and the lead study author. “It’s reassuring that, for many parents, these depressive symptoms ease over time. However for a select group of parents, depression symptoms persisted six months after discharge. Our findings help to ensure that we target mental health screening and services to these more vulnerable parents,” Dr. Fratantoni adds.

The study is an offshoot from “Giving Parents Support (GPS) after NICU discharge,” a large, randomized clinical trial exploring whether providing peer-to-peer parental support after NICU discharge improves babies’ overall health as well as their parents’ mental health.

Mothers of preterm and full-term infants who are hospitalized in NICUs are at risk for peripartum mood disorders, including postpartum depression. The Children’s research team sought to determine how many parents of NICU graduates experience depression and which characteristics are shared by parents with elevated depression scores.

They included 125 parents who had enrolled in the GPS clinical trial in their exploratory analyses and assessed depressive symptoms using a 10-item, validated screening tool, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Eighty-four percent of the parents were women. Nearly 61 percent of their infants were male and were born at a median gestational age of 37.7 weeks and mean birth weight of 2,565 grams. The median length of time these newborns remained in the NICU was 18 days.

When the newborns were discharged, 50 parents (40 percent) had elevated CES-D scores. By six months after discharge, that number dropped to 17 parents (14 percent).Their mean age ranged from 26.5 to 30.6 years old.

“Parents of NICU graduates who are young, have less education and are caring for other children are at higher risk for persistent symptoms of depression,” says Dr. Fratantoni. “We know that peripartum mood disorders can persist for one year or more after childbirth so these findings will help us to better match mental health care services to parents who are most in need.”

An American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ committee opinion issued May 2018 calls for all women to have contact with a maternal care provider within the first three weeks postpartum and to undergo a comprehensive postpartum visit no later than 12 weeks after birth that includes screening for postpartum depression and anxiety using a validated instrument.

Study co-authors include Lisa Tuchman, M.D., MPH, chief, Children’s Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine Division; Randi Streisand, Ph.D., Children’s interim chief of Psychology and Behavioral Health; Nicole S. Herrera; Katherine Kritikos and Lamia Soghier, M.D., Children’s neonatologist.

Preemie Baby

Brain food for preemies

Preemie Baby

Babies born prematurely – before 37 weeks of pregnancy – often have a lot of catching up to do. Not just in size. Preterm infants typically lag behind their term peers in a variety of areas as they grow up, including motor development, behavior and school performance.

New research suggests one way to combat this problem. The study, led by Children’s researchers and presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies 2018 annual meeting, suggests that the volume of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and calories consumed by very vulnerable premature infants significantly contributes to increased brain volume and white matter development, even though additional research is needed to determine specific nutritional approaches that best support these infants’ developing brains.

During the final weeks of pregnancy, the fetal brain undergoes an unprecedented growth spurt, dramatically increasing in volume as well as structural complexity as the fetus approaches full term.

One in 10 infants born in the U.S. in 2016 was born before 37 weeks of gestation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Within this group, very low birthweight preemies are at significant risk for growth failure and neurocognitive impairment. Nutritional support in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) helps to encourage optimal brain development among preterm infants. However, their brain growth rates still lag behind those seen in full-term newborns.

“Few studies have investigated the impact of early macronutrient and caloric intake on microstructural brain development in vulnerable preterm infants,” says Katherine Ottolini, lead author of the Children’s-led study. “Advanced quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques may help to fill that data gap in order to better direct targeted interventions to newborns who are most in need.”

The research team at Children’s National Health System enrolled 69 infants who were born younger than 32 gestational weeks and weighed less than 1,500 grams. The infants’ mean birth weight was 970 grams and their mean gestational age at birth was 27.6 weeks.

The newborns underwent MRI at their term-equivalent age, 40 weeks gestation. Parametric maps were generated for fractional anisotropy in regions of the cerebrum and cerebellum for diffusion tensor imaging analyses, which measures brain connectivity and white matter tract integrity. The research team also tracked nutritional data: Grams per kilogram of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and overall caloric intake.

“We found a significantly negative association between fractional anisotropy and cumulative macronutrient/caloric intake,” says Catherine Limperopoulos, Ph.D., director of Children’s Developing Brain Research Laboratory and senior author of the research. “Curiously, we also find significantly negative association between macronutrient/caloric intake and regional brain volume in the cortical and deep gray matter, cerebellum and brainstem.”

Because the nutritional support does contribute to cerebral volumes and white matter microstructural development in very vulnerable newborns, Limperopoulos says the significant negative associations seen in this study may reflect the longer period of time these infants relied on nutritional support in the NICU.

In addition to Ottolini and Limperopoulos, study co-authors include Nickie Andescavage, M.D., Attending, Children’s Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine; and Kushal Kapse.

mom and baby

Improving NICU discharge for families and staff

mom and baby

The day of discharge from a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) can be overwhelming for families and for hospital staff. A Children’s National Health System team found that beginning discharge education early, communicating in ways attuned to families’ needs and using a classroom setting to teach hands-on skills for newborn care can improve parents’ experience during the discharge process, according to a study presented at the 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) national conference.

“So much innovation in our NICU comes from listening to parents,” says Michelande Ridoré, M.S., program lead in Children’s Division of Neonatology. “Beyond caring for the child, we also care for the family, and input from parents helps improve our processes and improve parents’ readiness to care for their child when a NICU baby is ready to go home.”

With discharge, the first hint of a problem in the NICU came from lagging Press Ganey scores, measures of families’ satisfaction with their overall hospital experience. Parents whose very sick infants had round-the-clock care felt overwhelmed by the array of skills they needed to learn to replicate that care at home. NICU staff determined the root cause of the problem and, using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Model for Improvement, former NICU parents, nurse educators, family support specialists and quality improvement managers crafted strategies to ameliorate them.

Already, Children’s NICU parents can “room in,” sleeping in their child’s room overnight as discharge nears in order to practice caring for a child with complex care needs. Children’s goal was to increase the number of discharge education sessions so that 90 percent of parents would receive discharge guidance more than 24 hours before their newborn was released from the NICU. The sessions included such staples as how to bathe and feed newborns who often were intubated; the benefits of skin-to-skin contact that characterizes kangaroo care; the child’s diagnosis and immunization status; optimal placement while sleeping; a hearing test and a car seat test, among other information.

“When we speak with parents, they said ‘I had no idea my car seat expired. I had no idea I needed to stay for a car seat test. You had an x, y and z list for me to take my child home. Now, I’ve interacted with someone who told me about that check list and how important it is,’ ” Ridoré says.

Many parents received the one-hour sessions in a classroom setting. On the door to their child’s room, they received alerts indicating whether they had completed courses. Beside the bed was a poster to help track progress toward discharge goals.

According to the study authors, the initiative boosted the number of parents who received discharge training in the 24 hours prior to discharge by 27 percent, a figure that grew over time to a 36 percent boost in such timely communication. Satisfaction scores improved and, in interviews, NICU staff said the process improvements streamlined how much time it takes to prepare families for discharge.

“Preparing parents for discharge in a classroom setting was a successful way to increase the number of families who receive this education before their child prepares to leave the NICU,” Ridoré says. “Families and nurses are happy. In the next phase of this research, we will quantify improvements in satisfaction and further refine pre-discharge training sessions.”

Latina mother playing with her baby boy son on bed

Helping parents of babies leaving NICU cope

Latina mother playing with her baby boy son on bed

A study team from Children’s National tried to determine factors closely associated with poor emotional function in order to identify at-risk parents most in need of mental health support.

Nearly half of parents reported depressive symptoms, anxiety and stress when their infants were discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and parents who were the most anxious were the most depressed. A Children’s National Health System team presented these research findings during the 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) national conference.

Because their infants’ lives hang in the balance, NICU parents are at particular risk for poor emotional function, including mood disorders, anxiety and distress. Children’s National Neonatologist Lamia Soghier, M.D., and the study team tried to determine factors closely associated with poor emotional function in order to identify at-risk parents most in need of mental health support.

The study team enrolled 300 parents and infants in a randomized controlled clinical trial that explored the impact of providing peer-to-peer support to parents after their newborns are discharged from the NICU. The researchers relied on a 10-item tool to assess depressive symptoms and a 46-question tool to describe the degree of parental stress. They used regression and partial correlation to characterize the relationship between depressive symptoms, stress, gender and educational status with such factors as the infant’s gestational age at birth, birth weight and length of stay.

Some 58 percent of the infants in the study were male; 58 percent weighed less than 2,500 grams at birth; and the average length of stay for 54 percent of infants was less than two weeks. Eighty-nine percent of parents who completed the surveys were mothers; 44 percent were African American; and 45 percent reported having attained at least a college degree. Forty-three percent were first-time parents.

About 45 percent of NICU parents had elevated Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) scores.

“The baby’s gender, gestational age at birth and length of NICU stay were associated with the parents having more pronounced depressive symptoms,” Dr. Soghier says. “Paradoxically, parents whose newborns were close to full-term at delivery had 6.6-fold increased odds of having elevated CES-D scores compared with parents of preemies born prior to 28 weeks’ gestation. Stress levels were higher in mothers compared with fathers, but older parents had lower levels of stress than younger parents.”

Dr. Soghier says the results presented at AAP are an interim analysis. The longer-term PCORI-funded study continues and explores the impact of providing peer support for parents after NICU discharge.

Patricio Ray

Toward a better definition for AKI in newborns

Patricio Ray

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases convened a meeting of expert neonatologists and pediatric nephrologists, including Dr. Patricio Ray, to review state-of-the-art knowledge about acute kidney injury in neonates and to evaluate the best method to assess these patients’ kidney function.

Each year, thousands of infants in the United States end up in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) with acute kidney injury (AKI), a condition in which the kidneys falter in performing the critical role of filtering waste products and excess fluid from the blood to produce urine. Being able to identify neonates during the early stages of AKI is critical to doctors and clinician-scientists who treat and study this condition, explains Patricio Ray, M.D., a nephrologist at Children’s National Health System.

Without an accurate definition and early identification of newborns with AKI, it is difficult for doctors to limit the use of antibiotics or other medications that can be harmful to the kidneys. Neonates who have AKI should not receive large volumes of fluids, a treatment that can cause severe complications when the kidneys do not properly function.

Until recently, there was no standard definition for AKI, leaving doctors and researchers to develop their own guidelines. Lacking set criteria led to confusion, Dr. Ray says. For example, different studies estimating the percentage of infants in NICUs with AKI ranged from 8 percent to 40 percent, depending on which definition was used. In 2012, a group known as the Kidney Disease Improved Global Outcome (KDIGO) issued practice guidelines for AKI that provide a standard for doctors and researchers to follow. They focus largely on measuring the relative levels of serum creatinine, a protein produced by muscles that is filtered by the kidneys, and the amount of urine output, which typically declines in adults and older children with failing kidneys.

The problem with these guidelines, Dr. Ray explains, is they are not sensitive enough to identify newborns experiencing the early stages of AKI during the first week of life. Newborns can have high serum creatinine levels during the first week of life due to residual levels transferred from mothers through the placenta. Also, because their kidneys are immature, failure often can mean higher – not diminished – urine production.

In 2013, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, convened a meeting of leading neonatologists and pediatric nephrologists – including Dr. Ray – to review state-of-the-art knowledge about AKI in neonates and to evaluate the best manner to assess kidney function in these patients. They published a summary of their discussion online June 12, 2017 in Pediatric Research.

Among other findings, the group concluded that the current definition of AKI lacks the sensitivity needed to identify the early stages of AKI in neonates’ first week of life. They also said that more research was needed to fill this gap.

That’s where Dr. Ray’s current research comes in. Working with fellow Children’s Nephrologist Charu Gupta, M.D., and Children’s Neonatologist An Massaro, M.D., the three clinician-scientists reviewed the medical records of 106 infants born at term with a condition known as hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), in which the brain doesn’t receive enough oxygen. Not only does this often lead to brain injury, but it also greatly increases the risk of AKI.

Because these babies had been followed closely in the NICU to assess the possibility of AKI, their serum creatinine had been checked frequently. The researchers found that about 69 percent of the infants with HIE followed at Children’s National never developed signs of kidney failure during their first week of life. These babies’ serum creatinine concentrations dropped by 50 percent or more by the time they were 1 week old, about the same as reported previously in healthy neonates. Another 12 percent of the infants with HIE developed AKI according to the definition established by the KDIGO group in 2012. These infants:

  • Required more days of mechanical ventilation and medications to increase their blood pressure
  • Had higher levels of antibiotics in their bloodstreams
  • Retained more fluid
  • Had lower urinary levels of a molecule that their kidneys should have been cleared and
  • Had to stay in the hospital longer

A third group of the infants with HIE, about 19 percent, did not meet the standard criteria for AKI. However, these babies had a rate of decline of serum creatinine that was significantly slower than the normal newborns and the infants with HIE who had excellent outcomes. Rather, their outcomes matched those of infants with established AKI.

Dr. Ray notes that by following the rate of serum creatinine decline during the first week of life physicians could identify neonates with impaired kidney function. This approach provides a more sensitive method to identify the early stages of AKI in neonates. “By looking at how fast babies were clearing their serum creatinine compared with the day they were born, we could predict how well their kidneys were working,” he says. Dr. Ray and colleagues published these findings July 2016 in Pediatric Nephrology.

He adds that further studies will be necessary to confirm the utility of this new approach to assess the renal function of term newborns with other diseases and preterm neonates. Eventually, he hopes this new approach will become uniform clinical practice.