Hundreds of doctors and staff members from major hospitals in Israel heard lectures from the foremost experts from the United States, Canada and Israel in an International Symposium held in Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center  * Guest of Honor was Prof. K.J.S. (“Sunny”) Anand, Division Chief of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, and a pioneer in changing the concept of pain management in  premature infants.

Prof. Sunny Anand The Symposium’s Guest of Honor

“Thanks to our Guest of Honor, it is clear today that fetuses and premature babies experience pain; that there exists a physiological and psychological memory of pain; and that the experience of pain is a negative stimulus, leading to neuronal death and abnormal fetal brain development.  However,  until 20 years ago everyone believed that premature infants do not feel pain” - said Dr. Iris Morag, Director of the Neonatal Follow up Clinic in Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center at the International Symposium r.

Dr. Morag, who initiated the Symposium, said  that  Prof. Anand's research  has changed the approach to treating premature infants all over the world.  "While all of us here are aware that the premature infant feels pain, we  nonetheless  realize how difficult it is to use preventive treatment.  Unfortunately,  premature babies undergo hundreds of needle stabs, intubations, and even more invasive procedures without  analgesia or sedation. It is high time to change the treatment approach”, said Dr. Morag.

" When I attended these operations I was amazed to discover that they were being carried out without any anesthesia or analgesia " Guest of Honor, Prof. Sunny Anand

150 doctors and nurses from all the major hospitals in Israel participated in the symposium and heard lectures on the latest approaches to pain management in premature infants and on developmental care in the NICU, from the first moments of the baby's life.  Also participating in the symposium were Mayanei Hayeshua’s CEO, Rabbi Gershon Lieder;  the Medical Director, Prof. Moti Ravid;  Deputy Director Dr. Menachem Breuer;  and Administrative Director, Nadav Chen.

The Symposium’s Guest of Honor, Prof. Sunny Anand, said that, as a young intern in the eighties he noticed that premature infants would return from the operating room in a worse condition than prior to surgery.  "When I attended these operations I was amazed to discover that they were being carried out without any anesthesia or analgesia." 

Dr. Varda Gross-Tsur Shaarey Zedek hospital

Dr. Varda Gross-Tsur, a specialist in Pediatric Neurology and Director of the Child Development Institute at Shaarey Zedek hospital, lectured on “normal brain development”.  Dr. Gross-Tsur emphasized the complexity of the entire process, and the degree to which preterm birth and exposure to non-natural stimuli can affect the normal development process. Jonathan Hellman, Professor of Pediatrics, and the Medical Director of the NICU in Toronto Children's Hospital, presented his ethical philosophy, which views parents as the premature baby’s source of strength, and an integral factor in its treatment, development and good health.

Dr. gretchen Lawhon, from the Cooper Medical Center, presented the "NIDCAP" – Newborn Individual Development Care and Assessment Program - method which was developed by Dr. Heidelise Als and herself.  "This method," explained Dr. Lawhon, "is to view the premature baby as an individual with abilities and potential, needing a professional team able to evaluate its abilities and stimulate further normal development.  The method, which involves individual treatment and environmental adjustments, has changed treatment in NICU's all over the world, bringing quiet rooms and subdued lighting, and enables parents to touch, and even take care of their babies.

Dr. Yakov Landman, Director of the Neonatal and NICU department at Mayanei Hayeshua, reviewed Mayanei Hayeshua’s unique treatment of premature infants, and the development of the Dyna and Fala Weinstock NICU.  Dyna and Fala Weinstock a"h were sisters, Holocaust survivors, who dedicated their fortune, even during their lifetimes, to a charitable trust supporting projects in the field of medicine.  After surviving the years of terror in Europe, the Weinstock sisters remained childless.  About two years ago the trust donated a million dollars for the NICU.

Dr. Daniel Lubin, Director of the NICU at Mayanei Hayeshua, said that "In the Dyna and Fala Weinstock NICU there are 16 stations, furnished with the best in incubators, monitors and ventilators, together with a multi–system medical team to provide solutions to the problems of premature babies in all areas – surgical, neurological, cardiological, and others, as well as workshops providing guidance for parents on their baby’s discharge, and well-baby clinic nurses.  Since its establishment, some hundred babies weighing less than 1750 grams have been treated each year– the smallest being only 540 grams.  The survival rate here is particularly high, thank G-d, thanks to the winning combination of the most advanced instrumentation and a professional and dedicated team.  Dr. Lubin added that in the last two years a number of emergency operations have been carried out in the NICU , the most noteworthy being an operation to close a patent arterial duct (PDA) in the heart of a baby weighing only 850 grams.

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