Vibrating Crib Mattress May Help Preemies Breathe Easier
BOSTON (CBS) -- Max Wylie's arrival into this world was more wild than his parents, Molly and Adam, ever expected.
"He was two months early. He was 3 pounds, 2 ounces and he was in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) for 32 days," his mom, Molly, told WBZ.
Like many preemies, Max would stop breathing for short periods of time without warning.
"The first couple of times it's terrifying because you have no idea what happens," she said.
"It happens because their brains are still immature," says Dr. Vincent Smith.
As the Assistant Director at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's NICU, Smith treats babies for these sleep apnea spells all the time.
Smith and his team have now tested a possible treatment for this common but serious condition.
"That's part of what makes what we're doing pretty exciting because it's actually something, something new," he said.
The possible life-saving solution? A vibrating crib mattress. It's the brainchild of Dr. David Paydarfar, a neurologist at UMass Medical School.
"This stimulus surprisingly has been found to improve breathing in infants without waking them up," he says.
Using technology developed at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University in Boston, Paydarfar and a team of engineers designed and built the mattress.
The idea for the mattress stems from the work of Jim Collins, a bioengineer at the Wyss Institute. His work revealed that slight vibrations can help stimulate systems in the human body.
"To see a talented physician grab it and help a lot of kids around the world is one of the most satisfying moments of my career," he said.
A speaker inside the mattress delivers the soft vibrations. It's slight, but enough to trigger the baby's brain just enough to remind the newborn to keep breathing.
The mattress was used by three dozen babies at the NICU, and the number of times they momentarily stopped breathing was cut in half.
"The dream would be that most infants who are premature would benefit from this," Paydarfar says.
An even bigger dream, far down the road, is to offer in-home prevention of SIDS.
"There is the hope that this could prevent those events and ultimately prevent Sudden Infant Death. That is a possibility," he says.
But first, the mattress must go through another round of clinical trials in hopes of winning FDA approval.
"I could see this being used in NICU's throughout the country, absolutely," Smith says.
And a healthy child helps everyone breathe easier. As for Max, he is now an active three-year-old, who is talking up a storm, and loves the book "Where The Wild Things Are."
"It took a while for him to outgrow his prematurity," Molly told WBZ, "But now he's thriving."