Author Archives: Keith Barrington

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About Keith Barrington

I am a neonatologist and clinical researcher at Sainte Justine University Health Center in Montréal

Pain, still bad for you

Posted on 24 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

Roofthooft DWE, Simons SHP, Anand KJS, Tibboel D, van Dijk M: Eight years later, are we still hurting newborn infants. Neonatology 2014, 105(3):218-226. The answer is yes, but much less! In this study from a single hospital in Rotterdam with … Continue reading →

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Stop the Antibiotics!

Posted on 21 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

We know that prolonged antibiotic use in preterm babies increase their chance of later developing NEC. The assumption being that the disturbance of the intestinal flora leads to the increase in susceptibility. Here is some more direct evidence to support … Continue reading →

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Does being ventilated hurt? It depends who you ask

Posted on 21 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

Ruth Guinsburg is a neonatologist in Sao Paulo who has been super-productive, especially in the area of pain control in the newborn. Her latest is an interesting comparison of how caregivers and parents rate pain in infants on ventilators. Elias … Continue reading →

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Yet more probiotic stuff

Posted on 14 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

Here is the other study of saccharomyces that I mentioned previously on this blog (Demirel G, Erdeve O, Celik IH, Dilmen U: Saccharomyces boulardii for prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants: A randomized, controlled study. Acta Paediatrica 2013) recently … Continue reading →

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Your mother is the source of your microbiome

Posted on 12 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

An interesting review article from last year (free access) which discusses information from many different species, several non-mammalian, that show that, not too surprisingly, our mothers are the source of our microbiome. They speculate that the bacterial contamination of breast … Continue reading →

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Neonatal Updates

Posted on 12 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

Hyland R, Komlósi K, Alleman B, Tolnai M, Wood L, Bell E, Ertl T: Infantile hemangiomas and retinopathy of prematurity: Clues to the regulation of vasculogenesis. Eur J Pediatr 2013, 172(6):803-809. This observational study in 3 different NICUs shows that … Continue reading →

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Talk to me!

Posted on 12 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

A new review article and a new research publication address the same issues, the first is a thoughtful review article: (Rand K, Lahav A. Impact of the NICU environment on language deprivation in preterm infants. Acta Paediatrica. 2014;103(3):243-8.), the authors … Continue reading →

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Probiotics : Time for Action

Posted on 10 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

As I have noted before on this blog, our article showing the effects of the introduction of routine probiotics in our NICU has been published on-line. The Journal of Pediatrics decided to accompany it with an editorial by William Tarnow-Mordi … Continue reading →

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Neonatal Updates

Posted on 5 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

Alderliesten T, Lemmers PMA, van Haastert IC, de Vries LS, Bonestroo HJC, Baerts W, van Bel F: Hypotension in Preterm Neonates: Low Blood Pressure Alone Does Not Affect Neurodevelopmental Outcome. The Journal of pediatrics 2014. In this observational study of … Continue reading →

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If massage is so good, how come the research is so bad?

Posted on 5 February 2014 by Keith Barrington

I think its likely that massage therapy for the preterm infant has some benefits, unfortunately much of the research is under-powered, badly designed, inappropriately analyzed and overinterpreted. A case in point is a new study in Early Human Development, which … Continue reading →

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