Philadelphia, U.S.A. — The Center for Autism Research at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is among The Children’s Miracle Network’s (CMN) “Ultimate Gift” beneficiaries for its social media-based holiday fundraising program, Give Miracles. In addition to its social media presence, ads announcing the campaign for CHOP will run in the Wall Street Journal on November 10 and 24, and on December 1 and 15.

With 1 in 88 American children affected, autism is one of the most common childhood disorders, yet it remains a mystery in many ways, leaving millions of families desperate for answers about what causes autism; what are the best treatments; and why autism prevalence continues to rise. Donors who support autism programs at CHOP through the Give Miracles campaign will help unlock the mysteries of this perplexing and complicated disorder and fuel some of the most needed medical breakthroughs of our generation.

Research at CHOP is revolutionizing the understanding of autism. CHOP’s multidisciplinary teams in psychology, neurosciences and genetics are spearheading the largest and most innovative autism studies ever conceived. CHOP’s autism experts are applying state-of-the-art research and clinical tools to discover autism’s causes and find new treatments, while providing comprehensive, coordinated, family-centered care and support to meet each child’s specific developmental and educational needs.

Give Miracles provides donors with tangible evidence of their gift, from the initial donation to its final use. It is the first Impact Giving (TM) program of its kind, as it enables donors to choose the hospital they want to support and the amount and type of gift; those who donate will remain engaged with ongoing email updates on their gift’s impact for children with autism who are seen at CHOP and throughout the world.

“When people donate their hard-earned money, they want to know how it is used,” John Lauck, CEO of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, said. “The Give Miracles program lets donors be involved in the philanthropic process. They can have a direct connection to the impact their dollars are making at the local hospitals and on the kids they are supporting.”

GiveMiracles.org features a social fundraising platform powered by technology powerhouse Fundly, allowing  donors to create customized fundraising pages that call on their Facebook and Twitter networks for donations. This crowdfunding feature allows multiple contributions—especially helpful for addressing large fundraising goals like CHOP’s autism center. These miracle-making gifts could also be purchased by single benefactors—such as corporations and foundations.

To learn more about supporting autism programs at CHOP, visit GiveMiracles.org.

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Philadelphia, U.S.A. – Premature babies are more likely to survive when they are born in high-level neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) than in hospitals without such facilities, and this benefit is considerably larger than previously reported.

The likelihood that an extremely premature baby will survive if born in a high-technology, high-volume hospital unit was already known, but the current study, the largest to date, revealed a stronger effect. Pediatric researchers who analyzed more than 1.3 million premature births over a 10-year span found that the survival benefits applied not only to extremely preterm babies, but also to moderately preterm newborns.

The research team performed a retrospective study of all hospital-based deliveries of infants with a gestational age between 23 and 37 weeks in Pennsylvania, California and Missouri—a total of over 1,328,000 births. The study focused on preterm deliveries in high-level NICUs, compared to preterm deliveries at all other hospitals.

“Prior studies from the early 1990s found increased survival rates of 30 to 50 percent among preterm infants delivered at high-level NICUs, compared to preterm infants delivered elsewhere,” said study leaderScott A. Lorch, M.D., a neonatologist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “However, our research found rates as high as 300 percent improvement, when our study design controlled for the effect of sicker patients who typically deliver at high-level NICUs.” Complication rates were similar for both types of hospitals.

The retrospective study, which appeared online July 9 in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed records for all births occurring between 1995 and 2005 in Pennsylvania and California, and all births between 1995 and 2003 in Missouri. Lorch added that the results varied slightly among the states, possibly reflecting state-level differences in health policies, such as whether or not the state government designated hospitals within a regional perinatal system.

Premature babies are those born before 37 weeks gestational age (full term is 40 weeks). In this study, the researchers defined extremely preterm infants as those born before 32 weeks and moderately preterm infants as those born between 32 and 37 weeks. They defined a high-level NICU as a level III facility that delivered at least 50 very low birth weight infants annually. “We found survival benefits in high-level NICUs for both extremely premature and moderately premature infants,” said Lorch. “This suggests that the choice of a delivery hospital may influence the outcomes for the full range of preterm infants.”

Unlike many previous analyses of birth outcomes, said Lorch, the current study covered more than a single state system. Using hospital data from states in three regions of the country suggests that the results may be more generalizable throughout the United States than in more limited studies, he added.

However, concluded Lorch, “this research does not imply that every hospital should aspire to build a high-tech NICU—there just aren’t enough babies born prematurely for every birth hospital in the U.S. to have a high-level, high-volume NICU. Instead, the results may assist health care policy makers in organizing regional and statewide care systems to more efficiently provide the best care for premature infants within a geographical area.”

Financial support for this study came from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Lorch’s co-authors were Michael Baiocchi, Ph.D., andDylan S. Small, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, and Corinne E. Ahlberg, M.S., of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition to his position as an attending neonatologist at Children’s Hospital, Lorch is also on the staff of the Hospital’s Center for Outcomes Research and is a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Children and adolescents with obstructive sleep apnea had substantial improvements in attention, anxiety and quality of life after treatment with positive airway pressure (PAP)—a nighttime therapy in which a machine delivers a stream of air through a mask into the nose.

“The benefits occurred even when children didn’t fully adhere to the treatment,” said study leader Carole L. Marcus, M.D., a sleep specialist and director of the Sleep Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The Sleep Center follows thousands of children and adolescents with sleep problems.

The study appears online ahead of print in the American Journal of Respiratory and Clinical Care Medicine.

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a condition of interrupted breathing caused by a narrowing in the throat or upper airway, related to large tonsils and adenoids, obesity or other medical problems. Using continuous positive airway pressure commonly relieves OSAS in adults, in whom it has been studied extensively. However, there have been few studies of PAP in children with OSAS.

“The vast majority of children with OSAS undergo surgery on their tonsils and adenoids instead of receiving PAP therapy,” said Dr. Marcus. “It is difficult to get children to wear the mask used in PAP treatments.” However, surgery is not always effective in treating OSAS in children, especially in obese children,” said Dr. Marcus.

She added that many children who require PAP therapy have underlying chronic illnesses such as Down syndrome, or developmental delays. Furthermore, the rising incidence of obesity among children and adolescents has also increased the rate of OSAS in young people.

The current study followed 52 children and adolescents with OSAS at Children’s Hospital. The patients had a mean age of 12 years old, and 10 of them had significant developmental delays. The study team assessed sleepiness, behavioral problems, attention, and quality of life at baseline and after three months of PAP treatment.

The researchers found significant improvements in attention deficits, daytime sleepiness, behaviors such as anxiety and shyness, and quality of life. Both the parents and children reported on quality of life using standardized questionnaires that asked about feelings, daily activities, getting along with other children, and keeping up with schoolwork.

“We found that improvements occurred even when children were only using PAP as little as three hours a night,” said Dr. Marcus, who noted that higher compliance would be expected to yield greater benefits. She added that getting children to fully adhere to treatments requires a commitment by parents and family members to a behavioral plan that supports the treatments.

Dr. Marcus said that further pediatric sleep research is warranted, such as blinded studies to compare treatment to a placebo group and further investigations of neurobehavioral outcomes. “This study was the first comprehensive study of PAP use in children, so more research should be performed, but our results have encouraging implications for using this treatment in children with sleep apnea,” she concluded.

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