Dying in the first few days

A girl to come out healthy after the 37. Week of pregnancy to the world. After two days the mother and child leave the hospital in which the birth took place. Everything seems to be good.

But just a week later, the Baby in the US-Federal state of Indiana back in the clinic. It eats poorly, has a raised temperature of 38 degrees Celsius – and it moves weird. The Doctors suspect seizures.

The Doctors measured with an electroencephalography (EEG) the activity of the brain, and that the newborn has, in fact, epileptic seizures originating from different brain regions. A magnetic resonance imaging revealed that brain and Spinal cord are swollen, and shows bleeding in some Places.

Life-Threatening Disease

To find out what triggered the complaints, send the physician of the blood and nervous water samples to the lab.

However, you start with the therapy before the test results are available. Because the General diagnosis is clear: The girl has a brain skin inflammation. And this is dangerous to life.

The Baby is getting two different antibiotics, because Doctors assume that bacteria have caused the disease. In addition, it gets called anticonvulsants to prevent further seizures.

As the laboratory tests in the physicians, the administration of Antibiotics to the pathogen: a bacterium called Cronobacter sakazakii, the skin, the brain triggers inflammation, reports a team of experts in the weekly report of the US center for disease control CDC.

Pump, Sink, Sponge

How did the girls get? It was exclusively fed by mother’s milk, either the mother has breastfed it directly, or it got expressed breast milk. The mother has an approved pump, the liquid has never. It has wiped clean the pump after each use with a cloth. Occasionally, they took the pump apart and cleaned with soap and water or sterilized by boiling. To Dry, you laid the parts out on a towel next to the sink.

Employees of the health authority of Indiana to take samples of the pump, the pumped-off breast milk, as well as from the kitchen of the family – from surfaces and sponges. Anywhere you have Cronobacter sakazakii, so the type of bacteria that is also found in the nervous water of the baby.

How the pathogen arrived in the household, or the mother’s milk, are not able to clarify the experts. It is clear, however, that the mother has not cooked the pump, apparently, often enough, and the bacteria, therefore, the device could reproduce. As a result, the bacteria get into the breast milk, and the Baby has been infected through the contaminated liquid.

The experts warn, on the occasion of the discovery that can multiply, these pathogens very quickly in EBM. Milk will pumped out, it is extremely important that the pump after each use, disassemble and clean by Hand or in the dishwasher. Also, it makes sense, every day is boiled – in particular, as long as the child is not yet three months old, if it is a preemie or with a weakened immune system. The Federal centre for health education recommends that: All parts of the breast pump that come with the breast and mother’s milk are in contact, should be boiled before pumping or otherwise sterilised.

For the patient in the United States, the incident ends, luckily nothing serious happened: After a month or so, the Doctors released the Baby from the hospital. You keep the girl, however, is more in view, because it has a very low blood pressure and because they want to support its development closely.