Once doctors realized that, they began to give nitric oxide to babies to relax the pulmonary arteries. Those machines take over the work of the heart and lungs so that doctors can operate on a non-beating heart. They can only be used for a few hours and the longer a person is on the machine, the more the risk of complications. ECMO avoids the need to open the chest to hook up the machine, as is required with a heart-lung machine. It employs tubes attached to large blood vessels in the neck and leg, an artificial lung that takes over the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, monitoring equipment, and intravenous doses of blood thinners to prevent clotting.
Most patients return to normal lung function within a year.
Bartlett first used ECMO on a pediatric patient in 1975. There are machines at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit and Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids. Most insurance covers use of the device. U-M has 10 ECMO machines, including three portable units. By Tuesday, after a full week in the hospital, tiny Alaysha grew stronger.