Benefits for premature babies from PhD graduate’s research
A Christchurch study showing clear differences between the lungs of premature boy and girl babies has helped Kyeong Tae Kim achieve his PhD and could also lead to improvements in the treatment of infants born early.
Kyeong Tae Kim will graduate with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC on Wednesday 14 April.
He is looking forward to celebrating the milestone with his family and is proud that his thesis, based on research carried out at Christchurch Women’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and sponsored by the MedTech Centre of Research Excellence, could be a step forward for pre-term babies.
The results of the pilot study provide evidence that boys could benefit from being mechanically ventilated differently because their lungs are stiffer than baby girls’ lungs.
Premature babies often need help breathing because their lungs have not fully developed and they are more susceptible to respiratory diseases, such as respiratory distress syndrome which can be fatal and is more common in boys.
Kim says there was already anecdotal evidence among medical professionals that boy babies are more difficult to ventilate, but his research using a physiological model-based method provides data to confirm this theory.