Do you know those babies that a few days after birth have to put in light lamps, with a protection in the eyes, to help them eliminate bilirubin? They are babies who have a jaundice accused, that they are not eliminating well that compound resulting from the destruction of the red blood cells, that turn yellow and that need a treatment for several hours, away from dad, mom, and thus hindering their diet and their first care.
Well, these treatments in hospital lamps are totally effective, they help convert bilirubin into a water soluble form, easier to remove, and after all the hours they are there (sometimes it's a matter of days), the Jaundice is controlled. Science could stay there and not innovate anymore, because the remedy is already effective. However, someone must have thought that in that situation the baby could miss his parents and that his parents could miss his baby and invented what you see in the photo above: the solution so that babies can do phototherapy with dad and mom.
The what, a blanket?
If you look at the photo you see a baby in the arms of his mother wrapped in a blanket from which it seems that light comes out. No, the invention is not the blanket, that is what surrounds the baby. What they have achieved is a flexible phototherapy system that is in contact with the baby's body and that allows him to be doing treatment without needing to be isolated, nor alone.
The device in question is called Bilisoft, and consists of a light pad connected by a tube to the apparatus that makes it work. Thanks to her, babies can be with mom longer, breastfeed on demand, sleep in their arms, etc., in what is a breakthrough in the establishment of the bond between mother and son, and between father and son, if it is the Dad who takes his baby in his arms while doing the treatment.
As you can see in this image, the pad covers the baby by his back, chest and abdomen and then the baby is wrapped with a blanket so that he is not cold and so that it is only the baby who receives such treatment.
I would have thanked him very much, as did my son Aran, and his mother, when on the third day of being in the incubator they told us that he had jaundice and that he had to undergo phototherapy. During the two days that he was in treatment we could take less time than in previous days, and when you have a premature baby that barely reaches 2 kilos of weight what you want is precisely the opposite, have it in your arms, in your chest, give it Warmth, honey, caresses and explain that soon it will grow and you will be able to go home.
Now we just need this device to start arriving at the hospitals, so that children do not have to be separated from their families to receive treatment for so many hours. The problem? That is not the oven for buns and I doubt that health systems invest money when they already have the lamps of a lifetime, which also solve the problem, although babies can not be, then, in the arms of anyone.
