Dayton Children’s offers cutting-edge technology that prevents or reduces the severity of neurological injury in newborns

The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton is pleased to announce our ability to provide the Olympic Cool-Cap System, a cutting edge technology that is used to prevent or reduce the severity of neurological injury in infants.

This treatment option is offered by less than 30 hospitals in the country.

Traditionally, newborns who suffered from decreased blood flow and oxygen to the brain had very few options for treatment, leaving those babies critically ill, and depending on the severity of the injury, facing a lifetime of disability or even death.

The Cool-Cap System provides selective head cooling for the treatment of this condition, which affects two out of every 1,000 children and is a frequent cause of seizures, cognitive issues and cerebral palsy.

“Selective head cooling with Cool-Cap is a welcome innovation to the newborn intensive care unit at Dayton Children’s,” says M. David Yohannan, MD, medical director of newborn medicine at Dayton Children’s.

“We’re delighted to be able to provide this service to at-risk infants.”

“As the region’s only pediatric center, it is Dayton Children’s mission to offer the latest technology and evidence-based treatment to the children of our community,” says Cindy Burger, RN, MS, director of critical care services at Dayton Children’s.

The Cool-Cap System, which was recently given FDA approval, is a highly advanced technique that interrupts a potentially lethal cascade of events, which can result in brain damage or death.

The system uses a cooled, sealed water cap placed over the infant’s head to maintain a precise state of hypothermia during a 72-hour treatment window and then slowly re-warms the child for an additional four hours. Since only the head is cooled, the rest of the baby’s body experiences a temperature only slightly below normal, reducing the likelihood of the potentially serious side effects caused by hypothermia.

“At Dayton Children’s, we treat many infants that are born with decreased blood flow and oxygen to the brain who have gone on to develop varying degrees of disabilities like cerebral palsy and other long-term neurological disorders,” Dr. Yohannan says.

“Our ability to use selective head cooling provides the opportunity to lessen or possibly even prevent many of these potential problems.”

Dayton Children’s has two of the state-of-the-art Cool-Cap Systems, ensuring the service is always available.

“We strive to provide our patients with the most up-to-date and effective therapies for numerous disorders,” Dr. Yohannan says.

“With Cool-Cap, we are able to do just that.”

“If the Cool-Cap treatment can change the outcome and improve the quality of life for just one baby, it is well worth it,” Burger says.

The regional level III newborn intensive care unit (NICU) at Dayton Children’s is the region's referral center for premature and sick newborns. The NICU at Dayton Children's is a state-of-the-art, developmentally centered unit that offers a full range of newborn care. This includes emergency and continuing care for premature and critically ill newborns. Dayton Children’s physicians are board certified in neonatal-perinatal medicine and are assisted in providing daily care by pediatric residents from Wright State University School of Medicine and a staff of neonatal nurse practitioners.