Cooling the whole-body temperature of babies whose brains have suffered oxygen deprivation may prevent the brain damage or death that often results from such deprivation, a new study suggests.Fortunately, severe oxygen or blood deprivation doesn’t happen often in infants. When it does, it’s called hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), and the damage that results can be similar to that of a stroke. Out of every 1,000 births in the United States, HIE occurs in about 1.5 to two births. An infant with moderate encephalopathy has a 10 percent risk of death, and a 30 percent risk of disability.Unfortunately, because the cause of HIE is rarely known, there’s not much that can be done to treat this problem.However, medically induced hypothermia reduced the risk of death by 13 percent and the risk of cerebral palsy by 11 percent, according to the new study that appears in the Oct. 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
