Baby Babble

Donated, fortified breast milk offered to very ill babies

Here's an interesting development out of the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital: doctors are giving very ill babies breast milk that has been donated and then fortified to make it nutritionally enriched, allowing that baby to consume more calories quicker. The milk is being fortified by a company called Prolacta Bioscience and costs as much as $20 an ounce--a small price to pay for getting babies healthier and out of the hospital quicker, say doctors.  Some organizations involved in non-profit breast milk donations fear the profit motive in this endeavor.

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New software can help avoid medication errors in pediatrics

Drug doses for tiny babies are so tiny that there's no room for error--yet errors are higher than average among pediatric prescriptions.  Doctors, nurses and pharmacists are finding help in avoiding errors with new software that is based on a commonly used drug and nutrition reference manual, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.  The software helps doctors with the usual tasks---calculate baby's weight, age and degree of prematurity--and also has built in checks and balances to catch common errors and possible adverse drug reactions.  Error rates in one hospital using the new software were reduced by 62 percent.  ``There are a huge number of steps between when physicians start thinking about writing an order and when the drug is delivered to the baby,'' said one of the two program developers, a neonatologist at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh. ``We'd like to help at many of the points along the way.''

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