Packaging for Preemies

THRUST out into the world before they are ready, premature babies must be kept warmer than full-term infants if they are to survive. Thus, hospitals have long placed preemies in temperature-controlled incubators, where some cooling occurs each time the baby is fed or treated. Now there is another way. After experiments with hooded bags of the bubbled, air-pocketed polyethylene material used to package glassware, a team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center has found that the stuff can prevent damage to kids as well as to merchandise. In a test involving 85 newborn babies, they discovered that the temperatures of unpackaged infants fell by more than 2DEG during the first 40 minutes of life. But the temperature drop was only half as much for babies placed in the bubbly bunting within minutes of birth.

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