Saving the littlest lives – and giving them a big future

Donor-funded innovation at the Alberta Children’s Hospital is leading newborn care worldwide

Three-year-old Barty lights up when he talks about tractors or the animals on his family’s farm near Three Hills, Alberta.

While he’s too little to remember the Alberta Children’s Hospital specialists who saved his life, the healthy childhood he enjoys today is possible thanks to donor-funded technology helping protect babies here at home — and research and protocols behind it, guiding care for newborns around the world.

Barty was born in Red Deer via emergency C-section after his umbilical cord became compressed. His brain was deprived of oxygen and was at risk of serious damage. While his mom Chelsea stayed in recovery with his twin sister Wren, Barty was rushed by ambulance to the Alberta Children’s Hospital, with his dad Blaine following behind.

“When Blaine sent me photos of Barty, I just cried and cried seeing him covered in wires and hooked up to machines.”
— Chelsea, Barty’s mom

The Edwards Family Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, cares for the sickest, most vulnerable babies across southern Alberta. Many face life-threatening conditions that put their developing brains at serious risk of life-long disability, or even loss of life.

Thanks to generous community support, the NICU has built an innovation-driven research program that includes advanced brain monitoring, therapeutic hypothermia to protect newborn brains, and an innovation lab. While caring for these fragile babies, experts are improving treatments and implementing advancements to care in real time, at the bedside.

“One death, and one brain injury is too many,” said Dr. Khorshid Mohammad, founder and director of the innovation lab and Site Lead of Neonatology at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. “So, while we are taking care of these very vulnerable newborns with the most up-to-date therapies, we still challenge ourselves with questions like ‘can we do better?’”

Because of donor-funded technology and research, Barty’s team was equipped with the tools and expertise they needed to help him survive — and protect his brain. Using therapeutic cooling, doctors wrapped Barty in a hi-tech “blanket” — funded through donations to the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation — designed to lower his core temperature and reduce damage to his brain.

For the next 72 hours, Barty’s brain was placed in a hibernation-like state while his care team closely monitored its activity using EEG technology. On day three, as Chelsea and Wren reached his bedside, Barty heard his mother’s voice and opened his eyes for the first time. Thankfully, MRI results showed no significant signs of brain damage. With enormous relief, Chelsea and Blaine took their two healthy babies home.

Today, more babies at the Alberta Children’s Hospital are surviving oxygen deprivation at birth than ever before. Deaths and disabilities have been greatly reduced, while the need for anti-seizure medications has decreased by 50 percent.

Now, Dr. Mohammad’s team is leading advances in care for newborns across Canada and beyond by sharing expertise through innovative training tools, including a smartphone app that guides clinicians on criteria for therapeutic cooling. This app is now helping save babies in NICUs worldwide. The team has also developed brain models, simulators, virtual reality tools and AI-supported training that help deliver complex treatments safely and consistently.

“We feel incredibly proud to be leading the way in standardizing treatments to help babies around the world live, and live well. And this progress has been possible because of generous community support.”
— Dr. Mohammad

Seeing Barty today, in his cowboy boots chasing chickens on the farm, his future looks bright.

“We owe it all to his brilliant medical teams and people who support the hospital with donations,” says Chelsea. “Because of them we have our little boy, and he has a big, beautiful life ahead of him.”

This story originally appeared in the Calgary Herald on June 6, 2026