Angela Deken: Christchurch Hospital Newborn Hearing Screening co-ordinator on new innovation to stop babies waking during checks

In an effort to make newborn hearing checks a more comfortable process for babies and parents Christchurch Hospital has developed an innovation to replace cool gels. 

"Exhausted mothers after breastfeeding all night would be anxious that we'd wake the baby up when we were screening in the maternity units," Christchurch Hospital's Newborn Hearing Screening Programme co-ordinator Angela Deken told Andrew Dickens.

"And so, the kudos really goes to one of the screeners, Pam Spark, who just kept pushing and trying to find solutions."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
So christ Church Hospital texts may have fixed a pretty
annoying problem that's going to help kids. Newborns need to
stay asleep when they're getting hearing tests, but they have
to put electrodes on them to do this. And the
thing about the electrodes is that they're applied with a
cold gel, and the cold gel often wakes them up. Now,

(00:37):
a simple gel warming pad heats things up so babies
stay asleep. Angela Deacon is the program coordinator for the
christ Church Hospital Newborn Hearing Screening program and joins me.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Now Angela, Hello, good morning, New Morning, New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
So how big a problem was this? And look at that?
How easy to fix?

Speaker 3 (00:57):
I know, well it wasn't a huge problem, but certainly,
like we would rub the gel on the baby's head
in three spots and then a headset would sit over
their gel. But certainly exhausted mothers after breastfeeding all night
would be anxious that we'd wake the baby up when
we were screening in the maternity units. And so the
cutos really goes to one of the screeners, Pam Spark,

(01:19):
who just kept pushing and trying to find solutions. And
then we went to the bioengineering and they came up
with a wonderful new device which really has made a difference,
and the babies really appreciate it. A lot of them
don't even feel us rubbing the gel on their head,
and the women really love it because we're not going
to wake up the babies after they've been awake all night.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Why did you have to build a whole new piece
of kit to warm up gel. Couldn't you just got
a hair dryer and give it a bit of a blow.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
That's right. Well, well, we did look really wide, and
some of the screeners looked at maybe bottle warmers. We
went to radiology to see what they used or the
ultrasound for pregnancy, but those gel warmers were really expensive.
There were thousands of dollars, and because we move around
the maternity units, we needed something that was portable that

(02:07):
was going to last for about five hours a day's
worth of screening, but we recharge at lunchtime, so nothing
really sitted the bill really. So Stefan and Johann and
the biomechanics were amazing and incredibly patient and built us
a prototype which Pam tested. And yeah, and now they've

(02:27):
come up with a little groovy gewl woman on a
stainless steel plate that warms the gel up to baby's
skin texture. So it's just a much better experience for
the baby and the families.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
All right, now, here's another question for you. Why do
the babies have to stay asleep during this test?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
The headset measured the electrophysical response of the hearing nerve
to the brain stem, and so stay if a baby
was sucking really vigorously on the breast or awake or
making some noise, the really sense of headset can't pick
up the natural firing of the hearing nerve, and so
they need to get a really good quality screen to

(03:10):
know we've got the right result. The baby needs to
be really settled or asleep, so otherwise all of that
sound or muscle movement interferes with the accuracy of the device.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Okay, and it's in use right now, and now where
we go.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, absolutely, we've had we've got some We've got two
devices and some more of being made for every screener
will have a jowl warmer, so every clinic every hospital
will in our district will have a jowl woman, which
will be awesome.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Good South Angel dickon from Christia's Hospital.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
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