DALLAS – October 19, 2022 – A new study by pediatricians at UT Southwestern and Children’s Health reveals the impact of COVID-19 on children’s mental health. Separately, research was conducted with her $2.5 million grant from the United States. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Child Health and Development (NICHD) Investigate the ideal way to use oxygen during resuscitation of preterm infants.
Jacqueline Bolt, M.D.
COVID-19 and mental health
Research led by Jacqueline Bolt, M.D.A UTSW Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellow explored how patterns and outcomes of pediatric mental and behavioral health (MBH) visits to the emergency department (ED) at Dallas Children’s Medical Center have changed before and after the onset of the pandemic. I checked if it did. Dr. Bolt and her colleagues collected information from the electronic medical records of patients who visited the emergency department from her March to her September of 2017 to her September of 2019, investigated pre-pandemic trends, and 2019 and she compared the same period in 2020.
researchers report Pediatric Emergency Medicine Pediatric MBH ED visits gradually increased in the years before the pandemic, reflecting national trends. In 2020, he said MBH’s overall her ED visits declined, but the percentage of total visits he saw surged 42.8%. Includes demographic groups with the highest increase in MBH visits Woman, adolescents aged 15 to 17 years, and non-Hispanic patients. A pediatric patient who visited her ED for her MBH treatment in 2020 was significantly more likely to be admitted or transferred for psychiatric inpatient treatment than previously.
“These findings highlight specific areas of pediatric MBH care that may benefit from targeted interventions,” said Dr. Bolt. “Future studies are needed to investigate long-term trends and effective prevention and intervention strategies.”
Other UTSW and child health researchers who contributed to this study include Faisalmohemed Patel, Laura Stone, Divya Pandian, Matthias Manuel, and Nakia Gaines.
Oxygen and premature babies
Vishal Kapadia, M.D.
The NICHD grant will fund a multicenter randomized controlled trial in preterm infants. Vishal Kapadia, M.D., Associate Professor of Pediatrics, UT Southwestern. This builds on his UTSW-conducted pilot study that tested the optimal target oxygen saturation range that reduces oxygen toxicity and allows vulnerable preterm infant lungs to better adapt to the extrauterine environment.
Dr. Kapadia explained that extra oxygen is often needed to maintain normal blood oxygen levels in extremely preterm infants at birth because their lungs are not fully developed. Excessive oxygen usage is associated with oxygen toxicity, which can damage immature organs such as the lungs and brain. Too little oxygen usage at birth can lead to respiratory failure and organ damage due to low oxygen levels in the blood.
To achieve this balance, national neonatal resuscitation program guidelines recommend starting resuscitation with a low-level air-oxygen mixture and adjusting the oxygen level to achieve the target blood oxygen level. Recommended. These levels are based on expert opinion and data on healthy term infants who are likely not undergoing delayed cord clamping. Recent studies suggest that healthy term infants with delayed cord clamping have higher blood levels of oxygen at birth than previously reported.
Dr. Kapadia’s team conducted a pilot study to identify optimal blood oxygen levels at birth in preterm infants. This reduces oxygen toxicity and allows the baby’s lungs to better adapt to the extrauterine environment. A pilot study of 75 preterm infants born at Parkland Memorial Hospital found that adjusting the oxygen supply to achieve higher blood oxygen levels than currently recommended (healthy term infants delayed cord clamping) ), these neonates were shown to start breathing faster. Her heart rate was over 100 beats per minute faster. Improved cerebral oxygenation. Less oxidative stress. They were also more likely to survive without chronic lung disease compared to patients with currently recommended blood oxygen levels.
A new study, led by Dr. Kapadia, aims to validate these findings in a much larger sample of 800 preterm babies born at medical centers across the country.
“This study has the potential to transform delivery room management for preterm infants around the world and provide a simple and inexpensive way to reduce mortality and lung disease in preterm infants,” said Dr. Kapadia. .
About UT Southwestern Medical Center
One of the nation’s leading academic medical centers, UT Southwestern combines pioneering biomedical research with excellence in clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty has won his six Nobel Prizes, his 24 members of the National Academy of Sciences, his 18 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute research person is included. More than 2,900 full-time faculty are responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and are committed to rapidly translating science-driven research into new clinical treatments. A UT Southwestern physician, in more than 80 specialties, he provides care to over 100,000 inpatients, over 360,000 emergency room cases, and supervises nearly 4 million outpatient visits annually. .
