Children’s hospital uses new life-support techniques

A NEW technique is being used to save young lives at the Materno Infantil children’s hospital in Malaga.

Known as ECMO or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, the life-support technique substitutes heart and lung function during recovery from heart surgery by pumping blood through an artificial lung.

Patients that can now benefit from the new technique at the hospital include babies with severe heart conditions, newborns and children with severe breathing problems or infections that have failed to respond to other treatment in intensive care and following surgery, the Junta de Andalucia regional government explained.