BABY SAVED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 273, 28 August 1948, Page 5

BABY SAVED

BLOOD TRANSFUSION AFTER BIRTH (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 27: The life of a baby born recently at the Wellington Public Hospital was saved by a radical blood transfusion designed to replace its natural blood as completely as possible with a fresh supply from other persons. Although this type of operation has been recently carried out a good deal overseas and even on a few occasions in different parts of New Zealand, the Wellington case is regarded as particularly gratifying, and a dramatic one resulting from a high order of- team work on the part of tlie obstetrician and hospital laboratory and surgical staff.

The transfusion was necessitated by tlie R H factor—an incompatibility in tlie blood of the parents—-which in some cases can be so severe as to cause children of such parents to be born dead or to die soon after birth. It was realised that the baby in question was almost certain to be affected. Its blood was tested immediately on birth, and it was then taken to' the operating theatre where fresh blood was introduced through an ankle and the child’s blood drained out through a wrist. The new blood remained good, the child is now well and at home, with no likelihood of its' being endangered again with the same trouble. Until recently R IT factor was not understood, and child mortality resulting from it was put down to* some disease of infancy. When its true nature was , discovered, treatment of an blood transfusion with R H negative affected baby by ordinary limited blood became a recognised process for some years, with variable but reasonably encouraging results. More recently,. the more radical method, whereby as much as possible of* the baby’s blood—about 80 per cent.—is drawn off and a somewhat larger quantitv introduced, has been found more suitable in some cases.