{"id":332470,"date":"2025-06-07T15:22:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T20:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=332470"},"modified":"2025-06-06T01:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T06:38:07","slug":"preemie-youngest-innovative-treatment-fish-skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/preemie-youngest-innovative-treatment-fish-skin\/","title":{"rendered":"Preemie is youngest to receive innovative life-saving treatment using fish skin"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

A premature baby born at just 23 weeks has become the youngest patient to receive a pioneering treatment<\/a> using fish skin, which saved her life.<\/p>\n

Eliana DeVos was born weighing just one pound, and like many preemies, had to spend months in the NICU<\/a>. But while there, she developed a life-threatening bacterial infection, which affected the skin around her neck. It was spreading so quickly that little Eliana became septic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like a flesh-eating disease,\u201d her mother, Krystal DeVos, said. \u201cHer body was attacking something in her neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

A non-traditional treatment<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Dr. Vanessa Dimas, a surgeon at Driscoll Children’s Hospital, said her skin was too fragile for traditional treatment. “She was a premature baby, the wound was very extensive and she was pretty sick, so I did not feel like it was safe to do a surgical procedure on her,” she said. The wound was still deep and extensive, and required action be taken – so Dimas turned to something a little less traditional.<\/p>\n

Along with nurse practitioner Roxanne Reyna, who specializes in wound care, they first treated the wound with medical-grade honey, to clean it, and then applied fish skin from wild Atlantic cod, which would allow her body to grow new skin cells.<\/p>\n

“It’s microscopically so close to human skin that it helps. The wound start to heal. It gives a scaffold,” Dimas said. “Once it basically does its job helping the wound heal then it sort of just melts away.” And within just three days, the doctors said Eliana saw “dramatic” improvement. And just 10 days later, the wound had closed completely, leaving almost no scar behind.<\/p>\n

“It looks like a normal scar that you and I would get, you would have no way of knowing that they used fish skin to help expedite that healing process,” DeVos said.<\/p>\n

The power of faith<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Now, three years later, Eliana is healthy and thriving, and her case was presented by Dimas and Reyna in a report given in March at the European Wound Management Association Conference in Barcelona, Spain. The experience makes it all the more touching for DeVos when she sees her daughter playing with her Ariel doll.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call her my little mermaid,\u201d she said. And she hopes Eliana’s story will encourage other parents to be willing to take risks for their children, even if it seems scary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I hope people take away is that we can be grateful for modern medicine and the power of faith,\u201d she said. \u201cNever be fearful to try something new. Always be open-minded and just have faith. If something sounds different or you\u2019ve never been exposed to it before, just take a chance and have a little faith. And in our case, it worked out really great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A premature baby born at just 23 weeks has become the youngest patient to receive a pioneering treatment using fish skin, which saved her life. Eliana DeVos was born weighing just one pound, and like many preemies, had to spend months in the NICU. But while there, she developed a life-threatening bacterial infection, which affected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":332495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[9455,3473],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nPreemie is youngest to receive innovative life-saving treatment using fish skin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A premature baby born at 23 weeks has become the youngest patient to receive a pioneering treatment using fish skin, which saved her life.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/preemie-youngest-innovative-treatment-fish-skin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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