[ti:How a 1959 Discovery Saves Premature Babies Today] [ar:Jim Tedder] [al:Health Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English Health Report. [00:04.65]We told you last week about a study which found [00:09.48]that more than ten percent of all babies worldwide [00:13.91]are born too early. [00:16.00]One common problem in preterm babies [00:19.98]is respiratory disease. [00:22.87]The lungs are the last organs to develop. [00:27.06]But a medicine called surfactant [00:30.11]can save babies struggling to breathe. [00:33.24]The story of this lifesaving medicine [00:37.18]begins with a discovery in nineteen fifty-nine [00:41.06]by a researcher named Mary Ellen Avery. [00:45.10]She told this story in two thousand five [00:48.74]to Children's News at Children's Hospital Boston, [00:53.43]where she was the first woman [00:55.52]to serve as physician-in-chief. [00:58.41]She had been doing research [01:01.00]at the Harvard School of Public Health. [01:03.70]She was asked to find out more about the foam [01:07.60]that forms in the lungs of people [01:10.29]with a condition called pulmonary edema. [01:14.13]At night she worked in a hospital delivery room. [01:18.81]She saw many premature babies [01:21.95]with hyaline membrane disease, [01:25.19]now called respiratory distress syndrome. [01:29.52]She examined the lungs of babies who had died. [01:33.40]She found there was no air in their lungs, [01:37.13]and she discovered why. [01:39.77]In her words, "The material that was important [01:44.47]-- the foam -- was missing, [01:46.39]and they were struggling to re-inflate their lungs. [01:50.08]Nature put this foam, or surfactant, [01:55.79]in the lung to lower surface tension. [01:59.14]You cannot keep air spaces inflated without it." [02:04.21]Babies usually develop this coating [02:07.95]while they are in the womb, [02:09.85]but many premature babies do not. [02:13.58]Finally, in nineteen eighty, [02:16.57]a Japanese pediatrician, Tetsuro Fujiwara, [02:21.26]published a study about an artificial surfactant. [02:26.14]It could be given to a baby and, [02:29.02]within minutes, the baby could breathe. [02:32.32]The medical community had taken years [02:35.61]to accept Dr. Avery's discovery. [02:38.60]But she said in a Harvard Medical School interview [02:42.63]in nineteen eighty-two that she never gave up. [02:46.62]MARY ELLEN AVERY: "Hanging in there is key, I think. [02:49.41]Knowing what you want to do [02:50.80]and not being easily discouraged is key, [02:54.65]particularly in research. [02:56.45]You know, you're always moving into the unknown. [02:59.33]And you can spend months trying to prove something, [03:04.61]only to find that you made some terrible mistakes [03:07.59]and you have to be willing to say 'six months of my life [03:09.63]and my hard work went down the drain,' [03:11.52]and you have to start over [03:13.42]-- that's terrible discouragement." [03:15.08]Dr. Anne Hansen in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit [03:19.06]at Children's Hospital Boston remembers the first time [03:23.65]she heard about Dr. Avery. [03:26.00]It was in nineteen ninety, [03:28.04]when the government was in the process of approving [03:31.27]an early surfactant called Exosurf. [03:35.12]ANNE HANSEN: "And the attending [doctor] [03:36.45]who I was on with said, [03:37.74]'When you're on call tonight, [03:39.38]if there's a baby who's born who's premature, [03:41.88]you should watch very closely [03:43.77]the natural history of that disease, [03:46.71]because this is the last night before we're going [03:49.42]to start giving Exosurf to all our preterm babies, [03:51.90]so this will be your last chance ever in your life [03:54.49]to see what a preterm baby does [03:55.79]when they don't receive Exosurf.' [03:57.98]And then he told me the whole story of [03:59.42]Dr. Avery and her discoveries." [04:00.96]Mary Ellen Avery was eighty-four years old [04:04.39]when she died last December fourth. [04:07.83]And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. [04:11.83]I'm Jim Tedder.