Two Newborns Saved at Hadassah Hospital After Complicated Home Births

Medical teams at Hadassah Mount Scopus Medical Center in Jerusalem have saved the lives of two infants in the past two weeks who were born via planned home births and arrived at the hospital in critical condition. In the first case, a baby boy was rushed to the pediatric emergency department just one hour after birth, suffering from asphyxia, a lack of blood supply to the brain. Emergency and neonatology staff identified respiratory distress, a bluish skin tone, and an abnormal neurological state. In the intensive care unit, brain wave monitoring indicated seizures, leading doctors to cool the infant's body to prevent secondary brain damage. The baby's condition has stabilized and he remains in the neonatal intensive care unit. Professor Smadar Even-Tov, director of neonatology at Hadassah, emphasized that immediate assessment and rapid resuscitation at the hospital could have prevented further brain damage.

In a separate incident about ten days prior, parents brought their three-day-old daughter to the emergency room due to significant bleeding in her diaper. Pediatricians diagnosed the infant as life-threatening, in shock, with severe acidosis and critically low hemoglobin. Following a decision by the director of neonatology, she was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit. Tests revealed the bleeding was caused by a deficiency in Vitamin K, a crucial component for preventing hemorrhages that is typically administered to newborns. The parents had reportedly refused to give the infant the vitamin. The unit's team, noting this was one of the most severe cases they had treated due to vitamin deficiency, saved her life by administering the vitamin and blood products, which stopped the bleeding. The infant is no longer in danger and has been released home.