Low blood oxygen increases the chances of premature
deaths in children
The study, published in Lancet’s EclinicalMedicine
journal, shows that low blood oxygen is common not only in pneumonia, but also
in many other conditions.
“Low blood oxygen is particularly common in newborn infants,
especially those who are premature or have very difficult births,” said Hamish
Graham from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia.
For the study, Graham worked with colleagues in
Nigeria to record the blood oxygen levels of more than 23,000 children admitted
to 12 medium-sized hospitals.
“Your blood oxygen level is the amount of oxygen
carried by red blood cells from the lungs to the rest of the body — low blood
oxygen damages cells and can lead to death,” Graham said.
“Our study found that one in four newborns and one in
10 children in hospitals had low blood oxygen, and these children were eight
times more likely to die than those with normal blood oxygen,” Graham added.
The researchers hope the findings would encourage
policy makers and healthcare workers in low and middle income countries to
increase the use of oxygen measuring tools and oxygen therapy.
“Our modellings suggest that better use of oxygen
monitoring and therapy in the 12 highest mortality countries in the world could
prevent up to 148,000 child pneumonia deaths annually,” Graham said.
04.11.2019
Be a good person but don’t waste
time to prove it
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