I amazes me that ECGs are not routinely done on newborns. A simple ECG at birth would have ruled out Long Q syndrome that my 6 year old almost died from. He was given antibiotics and his heart rhythm went into V-tach and then torsades. It was a terrifying experience. I am in Canada.
I’m so sorry what you went through Sylvia- what a miracle he made it through. I’ve wondered this before in the past. The truth is at birth (like the first day or two when we’d be doing the NBS) a LOT of babies have long QTc (which is the corrected length for the faster HR). I’m guessing that there would be so many false positives that it would be almost useless. I feel like this normally settles out within the first week. Maybe it should be a test later at the pediatricians office? Im sure lots of super smart people in public health are considering this. I wish you and your family lots of health and happiness
Great question- really for false positives and false negatives! It’s possible a baby is on TPN or was micropremie or something and the first one was abnormal for that. If the second one is also abnormal- we need to be more concerned for a real disease. Also- there are some substances which may not have adequately built up to be abnormal on the first screen- so the disease only manifests itself slightly later. (Esp if for example baby was only on d10w or something). Really it’s a double check…
Hi! Thanks so much for watching! We need to get this out soon! We’ve been back and forth with NRP- trying to get permission for stuff- but I think the basis is it if it’s available publicly we can go over it (the algorithm, changes 8th edition NRP etc). So yes! We’ll get there soon!!!
Again a nice video. Thank you dear Tala. Do you do TSH and T4 for healthy baby from mother with hypothyroidism or you settle for newborn screening results?
Usually we just follow the newborn screen tests. (In Texas they check TSH on the NBS not free T4, so it's pretty sensitive). We usually don't test babies just for maternal hypothyroidism- unless something going on too.
